Marvel Elementary
by Inimitable and Original
Summary: The Avengers all have their own problems. The question is how will they deal with them being elementary school students? AU but with superpowers. Be prepared to relive some of the stupid things you may have done when you were kids. Rated T to be safe.
1. Sam's First Day

Sam Wilson inhaled deeply and put his hand on the door handle, retracting it quickly after a few seconds. He whimpered to himself, before furrowing his brow and inhaling, once more putting his hand on the door handle. He tried so hard to push the handle down, but it wouldn't go. He grunted softly.

"Okay Sam. You can do this." He said, taking a deep breath and pushing the door open, closing his eyes and holding his breath as he walked through. All noise from behind the door stopped and when Sam opened his eyes, he realized why. All eyes were on him.

"You must be Sam Wilson." A kindly voice said with a slight accent that Sam couldn't place. Sam looked up at the man addressing him and nodded. "I'll be your teacher, Mr. Selvig." The man said smiling. Sam nodded again. "Why don't you tell us about yourself?" Sam looked at him again and shook his head fiercely. "No? Well, okay." The man shrugged. "There's an empty seat over next to Clint and Phil, why don't you take that?" He offered. Sam simply shrugged and found the empty seat and sat down. He raised his head nervously and glanced over at the two boys sitting next to him.

The boy on his left had light brown hair and he was wearing a black hoodie with a purple t-shirt. That's okay, right? After all, it's not pink.

The boy to his right was wearing glasses had dark brown hair-in fact, it almost looked black-and he was wearing blue jeans, a blue zip up hoodie unzipped just low enough that it exposed a _Green Lantern _t-shirt. Sam put his head down and noticed the boy was also wearing blue _Converse_. Sam didn't have to guess what this boy's favorite color was.

Sam looked over his shoulder to see a brown haired girl listening intently to Mr. Selvig and vigorously scrawling notes. Sam put his head in his arms and groaned softly. After a few seconds, he felt something tap on his shoulder.

"Psst! Hi!" Sam looked up. It was the boy on his right-glasses boy. "Yeah, hi!" He whispered more enthusiastically. Sam looked at him stoically, not saying a word. "You don't know my name?" He asked. Sam continued his neutral expression. "I'm Philip, but everyone calls me Phil." No change in Sam's expression. "You like comic books?" Phil asked. "I _love_ comic books!" He beamed. Sam turned his head away from Phil and put his head in his arms again. "Oh. Okay." Phil said, feeling hurt. "But _Green Lantern_ is my favorite comic." He added, just so the new boy would know. Phil looked over at the boy to Sam's left and the boy to Sam's left looked over to Phil, who shrugged. They shared weird hand movements for a few minutes before Sam lifted his head and looked at their odd method of communication.

"What... What are you doing?" He mumbled.

"ASL. American Sign Language." Phil informed him proudly. "Clint is deaf. He can't hear so we use our hands to talk to each other."

"So you're friends?" Sam asked. He looked over at Clint, who smiled back at him. Quickly, he turned his head to look at Phil, who was moving his hands again. Sam looked quickly back at Clint who smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

"Yeah. We have other friends, but we're friends with each other too." Clint happily said. Sam's eyebrows knitted together as he turns his gaze towards Phil.

"You said he couldn't hear."

"He can't. I said what you said, but with my hands."

"The word you're looking for, Phil, is 'translated'." Sam looked behind. It was the brown haired girl and she looked smug with herself. Sam looked back at Phil, whose eyes were closed.

"Thank you, Jane." He said sarcastically.

"Don't be snarky with me, Phil."

"Don't interrupt my conversations, JANE!" Phil said louder.

"Phil, Jane, is something going on?" Mr. Selvig asked.

"No, Mr. Selvig." The two said, sheepishly. Clint made some hand movements, which didn't go unnoticed by Mr. Selvig.

"Thank you, Clint." He said, kindly, moving his hands as he talked. Clint looked at Phil with his head cocked and a big smile on his face. Sam looked confused and shrugged at the teacher. "Clint informed me that Jane interrupted your conversation, though you really shouldn't have been talking anyway."

"Sir, I asked about 'this'." He said quietly, waving his hands as he talked.

"Ah!" Mr. Selvig smiled in realization that the new boy didn't know about Clint's communication issue. "Teachable moment, kids." He set down his textbook and picked up a dry wipe pen. He drew a stick figure. "Clint Barton," He began as he labelled the stick figure 'Clint'. "As most of you know, is deaf." He said, crudely drawing a picture of an ear and struck a line through it as he said 'deaf'. "He can't hear." Sam saw Clint smiling and nodding from the corner of his eye. "How do we talk to him and any other deaf kids?" Mr. Selvig asked. He looked around the room as he awaited a response. "You can't." He said. "So we use a different form of communication." He scrawled the letters "A", "S" and "L" on the whiteboard. "American Sign Language." He said, signing it out, slowly and carefully. "While all you that are able to hear can listen to my words, I can move my hands and body in certain ways that Clint is able to_ see_ my words." Sam's eyes open wide in awe. "ASL is primarily used by deaf people, people who can't talk or express themselves well and their friends and relatives." Mr. Selvig picks up his textbook once again. "Of course, it would also be useful for spies and deadly assassins too." He adds under his breath.

Sam turns to see Phil signing excitedly to Clint. Sam turns to Clint who looks down at his backpack before gently kicking it under his chair. He brought his finger to his lips and smirked mischievously.

Feeling uneasy, Sam asked "What's in there...?"

"You'll find out later." Phil's expression mirrored that of Clint's.

* * *

In the cafeteria that lunch time, Sam had just paid for his meal of pizza, fries and _Jell-O_ and was looking for a place to sit when he heard a voice call out rather loudly; "Come sit with us, my new friend!" He turned around and saw a boy with long blonde hair wave excitedly at him. Phil and Clint were also there. Sam figured that the blonde haired boy and the others were their friends and went to sit with them.

"H-hi." He stuttered.

"Hey! You made it!" Phil said. He and Clint exchanged sign language with each other.

"What's he saying?" Sam asked.

"He said 'I _still_ don't know his name' and honestly, neither do I." Phil said thoughtfully.

"It's Sam." He said, poking his fries listlessly with his fork. "Sam Wilson."

"Well, you know Clint Barton already, I'm Phil Coulson-but you knew that too." Phil smiled.

"I'm Natasha." A red headed girl said. "Natasha Romanoff and yeah, it's Russian." She smiles, eating a fry. "Because my parents and I are Russian immigrants."

"Steve Rogers." The short, scrawny kid next to him said. He had dirty blonde hair and big blue, expressive eyes. "And this is the best friend I have in the world, James Barnes." He said, putting a hand around a long brown haired boy. They both smiled.

"Everyone just calls me 'Bucky' though."

"Why?" Sam asks, looking puzzled at the pair.

"My middle name. It's Buchanan." Bucky shrugged as he lifted his pizza up to his mouth. Sam could see that Bucky's left arm wasn't real and it sent a brief shiver down his spine.

"I am Thor and this is my twin brother Loki!" Sam looked over to the other end of the table. It was the excitable blonde haired boy and he was wearing a t-shirt with the image of a Pop Tart on it, much like how Steve and Bucky were wearing matching t-shirts with stars on them.

"Indeed." Said a much colder voice. It belonged to a black haired boy. "I am Loki Odinson. And my brother is Thor Odinson."

"Yes!" Thor shouted excitedly. "I am the older brother!"

Loki simply rolled his eyes at his brother and growled quietly, but angrily. "We are the sons of Odin." He finished.

"Not really though? Right?" Sam asked nervously.

"Not really. Their parents were just eccentric when it came to names. But you can't blame their dad, he really _is_ called Odin." A boy sitting at the end of the table replied. Sam was brought up not to judge others, especially since he was black, but the way this boy was sitting, eating, acting and talking said to Sam that this boy was selfish and annoying.

"And what does 'axe-center-ict' mean?" Sam asked, slightly annoyed.

"Yeah, come on, not everyone's as smart as you are, you know?"

"It means weird. Strange. Odd. Out of the ordinary. Not normal." The boy arrogantly picked up a forkful of food and put it in his mouth. "Where _are_ my manners?" He asked once he'd swallowed his food. "I'm Tony, Tony Stark-yes _the_ Tony Stark, son of billionaire inventor Howard Stark." Tony looked slightly embarrassed when he realized that Sam was indifferent. "Yes... Well..." He mumbled. "Bruce!" He whispered aggressively, elbowing the wavy brown haired boy next to him who had his nose stuck deep into a book.

"Bruce Banner." He said, looking up from his book. "I love science. Physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, anatomy-anything really. Science is awesome. When I grow up, I wanna be a scientist." He smiled, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"And I wanna be a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist!" Tony laughs. "And I'm already halfway there!"

"Give it a break, Stark!" A voice barked from the other side of the table. Sam looked over and saw another black boy, just like him.

"Who are you?" Sam asked.

"Nick Fury. Call me by Nick or Fury, I don't care." Sam noticed that Nick was wearing an eye patch. Great.

"So one of you has one arm, another has one eye, does anyone have one leg?"

"No, but I got this!" Tony stood up and lifted his red hoodie and his yellow t-shirt to reveal his bare chest. Only there was something glowing light blue in the center of it.

"Do I wanna know?" Sam asked, disgusted as Tony lowered his clothes.

"It depends if you're into tales of swashbuckling pirates on the 7 seas and...!"

"He was kidnapped for a ransom off his father, only there was bad communication between the kidnappers and Tony ended up getting blown up and now he has like metal grating around his heart… Or something." Natasha said, finishing off the last of her fries, smugly.

"Aww. You're no fun, Natasha." Tony pouted as he sat down. "Yeah, it's a mini arc reactor and it basically keeps the bits of metal from killing me." Tony looked at the puzzled expressions on his friends' faces. "It's a life support machine and I invented it for myself." Tony explained, in simpler terms.

"Wait, _you_ built that, all on your own?"

"Yeah. Mostly. I had a bit of help from my computer-and I don't mean _Google_-but yeah. Pretty much. The technology existed, I just made it smaller." Tony said, picking up his juice drink. "And fitted it into my chest." He added under his breath.

The short haired girl sat next to Clint spoke up next. "And I'm Maria Hill and yeah, I've got all my limbs and I've not got a weird heart like Tony has either." Sam opened his mouth to say something. "Or any other part of my body."

"I just noticed something." Tony said, putting his hands into the front pouch of his hoodie. "Rhodey's not here."

"Where _has_ friend Rhodes been today?" Thor asked as he opened his lunchbox. He gave a disappointed sigh when he saw there were no Pop Tarts.

"I don't know, Brother. I haven't seen him all day." Loki said coldly, staring at his sandwich. He lifted the top slice of bread in disgust at the topping inside. Ham.

"Maybe he's sick." Steve offered.

"Sorry, but we're not _all_ as sickly as _you_ are, Steve." Tony said as a wicked smile flashed across his face. Bucky noticed and stood up. With his eyes narrowed, he calmly began to walk over to Tony. "Oh, come _on_, Bucky, lighten up. I didn't mean..." Tony was cut off by a punch to the groin.

"And don't you _dare_ insult Steve again." Bucky said icily. "We don't like bullies in this group, Tony." He made his way back to his seat and sat down next to a shocked looking Steve.

"I'm not a bully!" Tony gasped.

"Good." Bucky said. "Because you would just _hate_ to get a punch from my metal arm." Tony looked a mixture of shocked, afraid and like he was about to push his luck. Phil decided to change the subject.

"So Clint has something to show us all." Phil said with a smile. The table fell quiet as everyone but Sam signed frantically to Clint, who grinned back at them.

"It's in my backpack." He stifled his giggle as Mr. Selvig passed their table.

"What's in your backpack, Clint?" He asked, signing the words out.

"My uh... Homework, Sir." Clint said sheepishly as he bowed his head, his eyes still fixed on his teacher. Mr. Selvig gave a disbelieving grunt, but said nothing more.

"Very well, kids. Carry on." He walked away and everyone but Sam burst into laughter.

"I don't get it." Sam shrugged.

Clint noticed the shrug and stood up, before reaching down for his backpack.

"Clint, what are you doing?" Sam asked. Phil interpreted.

"You'll see." He replied with a smirk. Everyone else stood up and Sam couldn't help but notice that they were all grinning from ear to ear-even the cold and distant seeming Loki.

"Come on!" Phil grabbed Sam's hand as everyone exited the cafeteria.

* * *

"Now hold still." Nick said as he placed an apple on Sam's head. They were all crowded around behind the dumpsters and had Sam backed against a wall. Nick backed away with a smirk. The kids parted to let Clint through. Thor jumped into a dumpster and emerged after a few seconds holding a weird looking bag. Clint gave him the thumbs up and Thor jumped out the dumpster to hand him the bag.

"What's going on here, I...?"

"Come on!" Nick said authoritatively. "I said 'hold still', didn't I?"

Clint took something out of the bag. It looked like an arrow. But it couldn't be-he didn't have a bow. Clint put the arrow carefully in his mouth as he took something out of his backpack. What was it? It was a broken chunk of metal? He unfolded it and a look of horror flashed over Sam's eyes. It was a bow.

"I gotta get out of here, sorry..." Sam tried to escape, but Fury pushed him back to the wall and put the apple back on his head.

"What's the matter with you?" Nick said angrily. "I said don't move!" Nick moved out the way as Clint took up proper position. Clint took the arrow from between his teeth and pulled it back against the bow. Breathing out, he released the arrow. Sam saw the arrow hurting towards himself at top speed. He ducked and closed his eyes before hearing a *_thunk_*. He opened his eyes again and realized he wasn't hurt. He looked up and saw the arrow, in the wall of the school with the apple speared into it. Sam looked over to Clint, who handed his bow over to Phil and began to walk over to Sam. Sam moved out the way, figuring Clint would want to retrieve his arrow. What surprised Sam was how Clint pulled the arrow out of the school with such ease. He offered Sam the apple, but Sam declined. Clint shrugged and took a bite out of it, still speared on the arrow.

"How... How did he do that?" Sam panted.

"Archery is his sport." Phil shrugged. "He's the youngest of two and he's deaf. He had to get noticed by his parents somehow that wasn't for pity, so he became a good shot."

"No, I meant the arrow." Sam clarified. "How did he take it out the wall so easy?"

"It's just cork painted to look like the school wall." Bruce said. "Clint practices here all the time."

"At school?" Sam asked, still not recovered from his shock.

"Yeah." Phil shrugged nonchalantly. "He can't get in all the hours at home, so he practices here too." He walked over to Clint and put his arm around his close friend, before giving the skilled young archer his bow back. Phil signed a few words to Clint who nods enthusiastically. Clint pointed at his backpack and Loki, who was closest to it, picked it up and handed it to him. Clint folded up his special bow and put it carefully in his backpack before gratefully taking it off Loki. He waved before leaving with Phil running after him.

Sam was confused by the events that had transpired around him and turned to whoever was next to him and asked "What's the deal with those two?"

It was Maria that responded. "We all started kindergarten together. Clint was often by himself. We assumed he didn't want to play with anyone so we left him alone. In first grade, Phil got a new neighbor-their kid is deaf and Phil put the pieces together." She looked down. "He figured that Clint wanted to be friends and play, but didn't know how since he couldn't hear."

"Apparently, he got his neighbor to even teach him some basic sign language." Natasha interrupted. "Showed it to Clint. He was so excited that someone had taken the time to learn to communicate with him that they just instantly became friends."

"And since we were friends with Phil, we became friends with Clint, too." Nick added.

"Huh." Sam grunted thoughtfully.

"They don't really like to be separated." Bucky sighed. "At least not for very long. Although we all know some sign language, we don't really know it like Phil does."

"Bucky's right." Steve shrugged. "They're best friends, but Clint needs Phil more than he'll ever tell. But Phil needs Clint too."

"It's called 'symbiosis'." Bruce stated proudly, but everyone except Tony just stared at him blankly. "Uh… It's a relationship of mutual benefit and/or dependence." He explained. Everyone still stared blankly.

"Clint needs Phil and Phil needs Clint. They're both getting something from each other." Tony explains in simpler words. "Friendship, companionship, love…"

"Love! Eew!" The girls giggled.

"I meant like brotherly love, but yeah. Whatever." Tony sourly folded his arms across his chest.

* * *

The kids took their seats after lunch break was over. Sam knew that he was sitting in between Clint and Phil. When he saw them enter the classroom, he immediately stood up.

"Uh, Phil?" He asked nervously. "Do you wanna sit where I'm sitting?"

"Why?

"I heard off Natasha and Maria that you're best friends with Clint. I don't wanna separate best friends." He mumbled.

"I'm used to sitting away from Clint. Actually, Mr. Selvig encourages it." Phil shook his head and smiled.

"Apparently we sign with each other too often." Clint said, sitting down at his desk.

"I thought he couldn't hear?" Sam asked.

"He can't. Well, not extremely well." Phil turned to Clint. "What is it? 80% deafness?" He asked carefully.

"Yeah. Exactly." Clint nodded. "I can lip read, but not brilliantly."

"Wicked." Sam nodded back. "What's it like being friends with each other?" He asked.

"It's really normal." Phil replied. "When you move past the sign language, you see Clint for who he is, a normal kid who likes comic books, candy and archery." He shrugged.

"Huh." Sam grunted thoughtfully. He hadn't spent that much time with Phil, Clint and their friends, but already he felt that he belonged with them. Maybe it was because he wasn't bullied by them, like he had been at his other schools, or maybe it was that he felt like they trusted him with such personal information. Either way, it was a nice feeling.

"Class, take your seats!" A voice called out loudly from the front of the classroom. Sam looked away from Phil and saw that Mr. Selvig had entered the room and sat down at his desk. There was an awful sound that filled the classroom of chairs scraping against the floor. Sam cringed at hearing it, but noticed that his teacher didn't seem too bothered by it, figuring that Mr. Selvig had heard the noise often enough over many years-he looked pretty old after all-to be used to the terrible sound by now. He also realized that Clint for sure wouldn't be bothered by the noise and it was the first time Sam didn't actually feel sorry for him for being deaf. Sometimes it had its advantages, he figured. As Mr. Selvig called attendance, Sam looked around for his new acquaintances. He saw Tony sitting in the far corner on his right. In front of him were the Odinson twins, the easily excited Thor and the cold and sarcastic Loki. At the front of the classroom, he recognized Steve and Bucky. Steve, because he's the smallest and scrawniest kid in the whole room and Bucky because he'd taken off his hoodie and his prosthetic arm was in full view. Sam could see someone in the front row turning to look at him with a redhead girl. He recognized the boy as Bruce, but not the girl.

"Natasha?" Mr. Selvig called out. A hand to the right of Phil shot up. At least Sam knew where she was sitting. He looked behind and realized the boy behind Clint was Nick and sitting behind him-doodling on a notebook-was the short haired Maria. There were plenty in the class that Sam didn't recognize, or the names. He recognized Jane's name, of course, but who was Darcy? And Virginia? Carol? Jessica? Peter? Another Peter? That's going to be confusing. Hank? He didn't know there was anyone his age called Hank. Janet? Very similar to Jane and also confusing. James? James? James? Why were there so many boys called James? Stephen? Great, another double name. Sif? What kind of a name was_ Sif_? At least it's not James. Sam's name was the last to be called out.

"Alright, kids! Welcome to English class!" Mr. Selvig said enthusiastically. He almost sounded like Thor. "Today we're going to carry on reading…" He picked up a book from his desk and held it aloft. "_Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_." He set the book down with a *_thud_*. "But first, I need someone to deliver this note to Ms. Carter. I _know _I could just email her, but as you all know by now, she's very traditional." Several hands shot into the air, with the exception of Sam's and Clint's. "Alright… Let me see." Mr. Selvig mused. "How about our very own… Star Prince." He said, going over to a table in the second row.

"It's Star _Lord_." The boy huffed.

"Yes, my apologies." Mr. Selvig said dryly and not apologetic in the slightest. A boy with messy brown hair stood up. He wore a red zip up hoodie that exposed a powder blue t-shirt and a set of headphones around his neck. He stuffed his right hand into his jeans pocket, snatching the note from Mr. Selvig as he exited the room, brown boots thudding against the floor tiles as he walked.

"Is he the type of person I think he is?" Sam asked as he leaned in to talk to Phil.

"Why? What kind of person _do _you think he is?" Phil asked.

"Jerk. Slacker. Just generally trouble."

"Nah, he's alright. Peter Quill. He's just acting out like that because his mom's sick with cancer." Phil whispered back. "He's got bags of personality, but he's a bit of a pushover." He shrugs. "There's a guy in 3rd grade that he just lets walk all over him. Yondu Udonta. Stay away from him he's trouble."

"Uh, I don't know who this Yondu guy is."

"Trust me." Phil whispered in a groan. "You soon will." Natasha leaned forward so Sam could see her and nodded vigorously, mouthing 'bad news'. Clint rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Uh… What are you talking about?" It was Jane from behind. Phil turned around.

"Yondu." He said, emotionless.

Jane winced at the sound of his name. "That guy's 100% insane." She said. "He's in the 3rd grade, but he's the same age as most of us. He just seems to think he can get away with picking on us because he's in a lower grade."

"Still." Another voice added. "He's not as bad as Ronan. Or Nebula." Sam looked towards the direction of the voice and saw a small black haired boy sitting next to Jane. He was _really_ small, like 'his feet didn't even touch the ground' small. Probably smaller than Steve. "Gamora's alright though-a bit weird, but alright."

"Yeah." Jane agreed. "The bullies seem to be in the lower grades. That way they can target the older grades and when we fight back, it looks bad on us."

"Scott would fight back for Alex against anyone." The black haired boy said. Jane shrugged.

"I'm sorry, who are Scott and Alex?" Sam asked.

"Scott Summers, 5th grade. His younger brother is Alex Summers and he's in 2nd grade." Phil said. "Scott isn't afraid of looking bad. Anyone who picks on Alex is getting a punch."

"Third and fourth row, I'm watching you." Mr. Selvig said. Star Lord dragged his feet through the door and half-heartedly dropped a note onto Mr. Selvig's desk. He sat down at his desk and slouched into the chair with a long groan. Mr. Selvig picked up the note and read it. He lowered the note and looked out at his class.

"I'm going to have to leave for a few minutes. Ms. Carter wants to see me personally." Mr. Selvig says after a few seconds silence. "Steve and Bucky are in charge." He says as he turns to leave the room. "Can't trust the rest of you." He mutters under his breath as he walks through the door.

Sam turned to face Jane. "I thought you didn't like Phil?"

Jane smiled. "Nah, he's alright. He can be a bit of an idiot, but he's fine."

"So who's Mrs. Carter then?" He asked.

"Not _Mrs._, it's Ms.!" Jane corrected, with a smile. "Ms. Carter teaches 5th grade." She said. "And Steve Rogers has a crush on her!" She said loud enough for Steve to hear. He blushed bright red.

"No I _don't_!" Steve looked down, awkwardly. Bucky was smiling, which was a good thing, especially given that his fist nearly went through Tony's groin earlier.

"Steve, you do. You can't really deny it." Bucky said, looking down on his diminutive friend. "I'm sure even Ms. Carter knows that herself…"

"Bucky, _please_." Steve said, looking up at Bucky with pleading eyes. Bucky turned to face towards Sam and Phil.

"He was having an asthma attack last year and Ms. Carter found him sitting on the floor in the hallway. She went to his teacher, Mrs. Rael and got his inhaler. Sat with him for a full _ten minutes _until he was okay again."

"Bucky!" Steve protested.

"What? She's not _that _bad looking." Bucky said, clapping Steve on the shoulder. Steve simply cringed and looked at his shoes. "I mean, for a _teacher_." Steve put his head in his hands. He was thoroughly embarrassed.

Sam turned back to Jane and the short, black haired boy, who was smirking. "So I didn't catch your name…" He muttered.

"James Howlett, but most people here-in fact _everyone_ here-calls me by my middle name, Logan."

"Logan?"

"Yeah." He sighed. Sam turned away, shaking his head. "Whatever, new kid." Logan snorted. "But when Yondu, Ronan or Nebula are bullying you, I'll be the first one to beat their sorry asses into the ground, eh!" Logan shouted as he slid out from his chair. "I'll punch them and knock them straight into the garbage cans! I'm like a wolverine!"

"What's a wolverine?" Sam asked, turning around to see what Logan was shouting at. All eyes were on the small boy. And boy was he small, looking at least a foot shorter than everyone else in the room. Even Steve and that's saying something.

"What's a wolverine?" Logan repeated. "A wolverine is an _awesome_ Canadian mammal that's really small but has a lot of strength." He nodded. Sam raised his eyebrow at the small boy in front of him. He was having a really difficult time believing this kid is strong. Cocky, maybe, but _strong_?

"Logan, back in your seat, please. Now." Mr. Selvig had re-entered the room. He had raised his voice and spoke firmly to Logan. The short boy climbed back up into his seat and huffed as he laid his stubby arms out in front of himself. Sam noticed that Logan's fingertips barely extended past the end of his desk.

"Where were we?" Mr. Selvig asked, picking up the copy of_ Chamber of Secrets_ that lay on his desk. "Yes, chapter 13." He said for the class to turn to the chapter. "Loki, would you like to start us off?" He asked. Loki simply nodded.

* * *

Last period was almost through and Sam was looking forward to finally ending his first day at his new school. Since his father was in the military, this was his sixth first day and they never got any easier. But Sam knew that in a few months, he'd just have to wave the new friends he'd made goodbye as his father would be stationed somewhere else, meaning his family would be relocated to a new town. He felt someone tapping his shoulder. It was Phil.

"Wanna come get slushies with us after school?" He asked, leaning in.

"I ca-who's going?" Sam asked.

"Uh… Me, Clint, Nat and Fury..." He said. "I _think_ Steve and Bucky are coming too. And I know Bruce _definitely _is."

"I uh… Maybe, Phil." Sam said after a pause. "My parents are kind of strict."

"What's your family like? I don't have a family-I mean, I _do_, but I don't. Clint has an older brother-he's in Middle School and his name's Barney…"

"Phil, you're speaking _way_ too fast for me to understand a word you're saying." Sam sighed.

"Sorry." Phil blushed. He had to keep his excitement reigned in. '_This is why you're a misfit_.' Phil scolded himself internally.

"You know everyone here, right?" Sam asked.

"I'd like to think so, yes?" Phil replied, not really sure where Sam was taking the conversation.

"Why are Bucky and Steve so…? _Enthusiastic_ about uh… You know…?" Sam tripped over his words. "Hitler?" Phil snorted and tried to cover it up as a sneeze. Mr. Selvig narrowed his eyes at Phil.

"Mr. Coulson, I've never had a problem with you before. You're a very well behaved young man." He said. "So I would appreciate it if you stopped disrupting my class, please." He said, kindly but authoritatively. "Don't make me separate you and Mr. Barton further."

"No, Sir. It won't happen again." Phil muttered meekly.

"Good. Because the next disruptive noise I hear from you, I _will_ be asking you and Mr. Pym to swap seats."

"Yes, Sir." Phil said, almost in a whisper, casting his gaze over to the blond boy on the right, sat at the table nearest the window. Mr. Selvig returned to talking about Hitler and WWII and writing notes on the blackboard. Phil leaned in to Sam again. "What was it you wanted to know?"

"Why Steve and Bucky are so fascinated with Hitler."

"They're not really fascinated with _Hitler_, they just really love History." Phil shrugged. "They were the same when learning about the Civil War-but that even got the attention of _Tony_." He said as if it was some impressive feat. "So are you coming for slushies?"

"No." Sam said curtly.

Phil tried to hide the hurt he felt as he moved his body closer to his desk. "Oh. Okay then." He said, desperately trying not to act like his feelings had just been hurt.

* * *

**A/N: So welcome to my new story. I've been in love with the Avengers probably longer than most of you reading this have been alive. Well, slight exaggeration, but it _has_ been almost 11 years. I thought it would be fun to introduce it from Sam/Falcon's perspective, but it won't be solely focusing on him. The next chapter-which I've already written-is focused on Star Lord and Coulson. It's about the Avengers as elementary school students (and with the exception of Fury, older/experienced Marvel characters will be teachers), but it features cameos from other characters from Marvel properties as well, from GOTG, to X Men and Spider Man to Big Hero 6, with a little Agents of SHIELD on the side. **

**I tried to get the characters as close to how they would act in the movies/comics, but as all the Avengers are aged 9 or 10, it's pretty hard to do that. But each of them has their own stuff to deal with, as you'll find out. Whether it's Tony and his heart defect, Bucky and his arm, Clint and his deafness or Bruce and his... Well, you'll find out. I've given the Avengers their problems, but I'm also making them deal with them as children. If there's one thing I love about superheroes, it's the 'rise above it' attitudes. **

**There's no guarantee I'll stick with it either, since when I return to university, I'll lose a lot of time and have to work more on my essays and assignments. But I'll do my best to stick with it, since I see a _lot_ of things I can do with this. Who knows? Maybe if I find the space and the right story line without it sounding too contrived, we might see a little bit of Doreen Green.**

**Lastly, I don't own any of these characters, they all belong to Marvel. **


	2. School Counselor

Peter Quill-AKA Star Lord-was walking through the halls of his school. Well, not really walking, more like dancing. The headphones that usually hung around his neck were now on his head, the soft pads covering the speakers pressing against his ears and _I Want You Back_ by Jackson 5 bleeding through them from his _iPod_. He wasn't aware anyone else was in the halls, after all, he had come to school a lot earlier today to get away from his problems for a while.

"Peter Quill?" Someone asked. It was a young boy with long brown hair. Peter couldn't hear them-he was too busy being Star Lord.

"Yeah, that's weird that he's here." Someone else muttered. It was a girl with shoulder length blond hair.

"Well, Heimdall must have let him in here for a reason." The first person unfolded his arms and he and the second person walked up to the dancing little boy. "Hey, Quill?" He asked as he tapped the child gently on the shoulder. Startled, Peter pulled his headphones from his head quickly and flinched.

"We're not going to hurt you, Peter." The girl said.

"Oh." Peter said dejectedly. "It's _you _guys." He lowered his head. "Hey Sue. Hey Remy." Peter knew the two were here because Sue's mother was Principal Xavier's secretary and Remy's father was the IT technician and both had to be here early.

"Peter, what are you doing here all by yourself?" The boy asked.

"I'm happy." Peter said defensively. He looked up again.

"No one's saying you're not." The girl said. "Why did Heimdall let you in so early?" She asked. Peter averted his gaze away from her.

"He didn't, did he?" The boy asked as he brushed his hair from his face. Peter shook his head.

"Oh, Peter." The girl muttered.

"Heimdall knows everything because he seems to see everything." The boy put his arm around Peter. "That's why Principal Xavier says he's the best security guard this school's ever had."

"What Remy's trying to say is..." The girl took a deep breath. "Heimdall probably knows you broke into the school. You're not supposed to be here for another hour. Please tell us what's wrong."

"Thank you, Sue." The boy said. He turned to Peter. "We know your mom's sick. And we know your dad's not around."

"Who told you?" Peter asked defensively.

"Drax." Sue and Remy said in unison. Peter groaned and rolled his eyes. Of _course _Drax told them, Drax couldn't keep anything to himself.

"It's nothing." Peter attempted to lift his headphones back on his head. Remy held his arm.

"I know it's hard, Peter."

"You don't know me." He hissed, pulling himself away from Remy's grip. He put his headphones on and carried on down the hallway.

* * *

Bruce walked into class that morning figuring he'd be the first one there, as usual. Bruce was always so eager to learn that he often arrived early. He enjoyed it, of course and the attention he got off Heimdall-who Bruce was absolutely _certain _was some kind of god, since he always knew everything about everyone. It was either that or he talked to people's parents. So he was surprised and not in a good way when he saw Peter already sitting at his desk and listening to his iPod.

"Peter?" Bruce asked, waving his hand in front of Peter's face.

"Go away, Bruce."

"I'm not mad."

Peter snorted. "Yeah, I can _see_ that."

"Peter, honestly, tell me if you're okay."

"I'm fine." He huffed. "Go have your little love fest with Barton, Romanoff, Fury and Coulson."

"If this is about the slushies..."

"It's about nothing, leave me alone, I'm fine." Peter growled.

"I know you're going through a tough time, we all are, but-"

"I'm gonna stop you there, I'm fine."

"Whatever you say." Bruce muttered. He walked away from Peter and over to his desk. A few minutes later, a tall girl with braided black hair walked into the classroom. She took one look at Peter and then her eyes moved onto Bruce.

"Star Lord's early." She said, walking over to Bruce's desk.

"You can say _that _again, Sif." Bruce looked up from his notes.

"What's he _doing_ here so damn early?" She asked.

"Hell if I know. He won't tell me anything." Bruce said quietly as he adjusted his glasses. "He just made fun of me for going out with my friends after school."

"Did you tell him about your dad?"

"No, he just growled at me and told me to shut up." Bruce sighed, putting his head in his hands. "Well not in so many words." He said, noticing the horrified expression that had crossed Sif's face.

"Little shit." Sif cursed at him under her breath.

"Sif, getting angry won't solve anything."Bruce murmured defeatedly. Sif sent a warning look to Peter who was paying little to no attention to what was going on around him and went to sit at her desk in the back, next to Maria. Phil was the next in the room and he was predictably accompanied by Clint. "Y'know, Phil, Star Lord was here first you know." Bruce said without looking up from his notes.

"No?" Phil said his voice full of surprise. "Really?"

"What's happened?" Clint asked, sensing a disturbance in the equilibrium. Phil signed to Clint and Clint's jaw dropped in shock. "Why?"

Bruce turned to face Clint. "I don't know, he wouldn't say." He said as he signed.

"You don't think something happened to his mom, do you?" Phil asked cautiously, glancing over to the sullen, self proclaimed 'Star Lord'. Bruce simply shrugged.

"I have no idea." Bruce shook his head. "By the way, how're your parents?" He asked. Phil looked down.

"My mother wants to take me away from them." He said quietly. "I don't wanna leave, y'know? I like the Coulsons-I _love_ the Coulsons."

"Hang in there, buddy." Bruce sighed. Clint, sensing the change in his friend's emotion, put an arm around him. Phil gave a small smile.

"Let's go sit down, Phil." Clint mumbled.

"It's not fair." Phil whined, knowing full well Clint couldn't hear him. Or maybe it was directed at Bruce?

* * *

Pretty soon, the class was filled with kids and they were staring at Peter Quill. He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. This is _not_ what he wanted at all. Sam was one of the last to arrive, entering the classroom shortly before Logan. He sensed something was amiss. Phil Coulson was quietly sobbing in his seat with Clint hovering at his side, comforting him. Bruce didn't have his nose in a book. Loki was showing emotion. Thor was oddly quiet. And everyone seemed to be staring at... What was his name again? Ah, Star Lord. Looking around, Sam noticed something else was amiss. Steve wasn't there. He scraped his chair back and walked over to the front row where Steve's friend Bucky was sitting. Sam had to admit, Bucky looked a little lost without Steve. He kept rubbing his right right hand up and down his left arm, the tips of his fingers lightly grazing the metal. He was wearing a blank expression on his face.

"Bucky?" Sam asked. It seemed to snap Bucky from his trance.

"Uh... Yeah?" Now that he had the attention of the prosthetic arm using boy, a million questions started making their way into Sam's head. The one that came up most often was where the arm came from. Sam opened his mouth to ask about the arm, but quickly remembered about Steve.

"Where's Steve?" He asked.

"In hospital." Bucky whispered almost sadly.

"Why? Is he alright?" Sam asked, full of concern. Sure he'd known Steve for only a day, but that didn't mean he didn't care. He didn't like to see anyone in pain.

"Yeah, it was... An asthma attack." Bucky hesitated. It was because he didn't like saying 'just', like 'it's _just_' an asthma attack' because he knew it was those attacks that might one day take the life of his best friend. Bucky looked at Sam whose eyes were focused on his arm. "You wanna know how I got this, don't you?" Sam gave a small nod and immediately shook his head.

"No, I uh... I wasn't wondering at all." Was Sam's strangled response.

"Hmm." Bucky's eyes narrowed. He didn't believe Sam at all. "Go talk to Phil, if you really want to know." He said with a sigh. "It's rather a long story."

"Class, take your seats please!" Mr. Selvig entered the room and walked over to his desk Everyone standing made their way over to their desks, with the exception of Clint who was comforting Phil and couldn't hear the command of Mr. Selvig. Mr. Selvig looked up and saw Phil crying.

"Phil?" He asked gently. "Phil, what's wrong?" He began to walk over to Phil's desk. "Phil Coulson?"

"I'm _not_ Phil Coulson!" Phil shouted angrily.

"Phil, please. I'm trying to understand." Mr. Selvig said, this time more firmly.

"There's nothing _to _understand!" Phil shouted. He stood up and wiped his eyes before he spoke again. "I'll probably never see you again, so what's the point in telling you!" His chair scraped back and he ran out of the room. Clint looked sheepish as he shuffled behind Sam's desk to get to his own.

"Bucky, you're in charge." Mr. Selvig said as he rushed out the door in pursuit of Phil. As he rounded the corner, he encountered May Parker, the 2nd grade teacher.

"Erik." She said, with an acknowledging nod of her head. "I saw one of yours. He was upset and appeared to be crying."

"Where'd he go, May?" Erik asked.

"I saw him run into the boy's restrooms." She explained. "I was on my way to your class to tell you."

"Thanks a lot, May. Really."

"You're welcome." She smiled. "Would you like some help dealing with him?"

"That would be just super, May, thank you."

"Any time, Erik. I'll just go get Frank." Erik nodded and dashed off around the corner to the boy's restrooms.

"Phil?" Mr. Selvig called out gently. "Phil, are you okay?" He heard sniffling, so at least Phil hadn't left in the time he talked to May. "Phil, It's me, Mr. Selvig." He sighed as he stood outside the boy's restrooms. "Mrs. Parker's gone to get Frank. You like Frank, don't you?"

"Leave me alone." Phil snapped.

"Phil, buddy, I can't do that." Mr. Selvig said firmly. "You're 9 years old. I can't leave a 9 year old on his own."

"You're here after me and not with the rest of the class." Phil said sulkily.

"I'm more than sure that Clint's interpreter can watch the class for a few minutes."

"So what's the problem?" An angry looking middle aged man had approached Erik and startled him.

"It's one of my students-Philip Coulson. He's crying and refuses to come out of the restrooms." The man's expression softened.

"It's a problem with his parents." He said almost immediately.

"What do you mean, Frank?" Erik asked. "Are they sick, like Peter's mother-by the way, I need you to talk to him too. Heimdall told me he came in earlier than usual today and almost as soon as I walked in I had Sue Storm and Remy LeBeau tell me how he was acting aloof and distant when they tried to ask him what was wrong." Frank gave Erik a puzzled expression. "Sticking to Phil." Erik muttered.

"Erik, Phil's last name's not really Coulson, though I'm sure you gathered that." Erik nodded. "He's being adopted." Frank sighed loudly. "For him to be this upset means that the adoption might have fallen through or worse-his _real_ parents have tried to contact him in some way."

"I didn't know." Eric murmured under his breath.

"Irani came to me after the exact same thing happened last year in her class."

"What did you do?"

"Bribed him out with my vintage _Batman_ trading cards." Frank shrugged.

"Vintage-how vintage?" Erik asked.

"Pre-Adam West vintage." Frank's shoulders dropped, remembering his tragic loss. "Given to me by my father." He sighed.

"What are you going to do now?" Erik asked, putting his hands in his trouser pockets.

Frank took something out of his jacket pocket. "The same thing." He said, cocking his head. He stroked the card for good luck and walked into the boy's restroom. "Phil?" He called.

"Go away." Phil sniffled.

"It's me, Frank."

"I said 'go away'." Phil hiccuped through his sobs. "Mr. Selvig and Mrs. Parker called you here."

"No, I came here because I have a new _Batman_ card for you." Frank said, trying to sound as convincing and non-threatening as possible.

"What year?" Phil asked, suddenly sounding interested.

"Adam West, 1967." Frank repeated from memory. He leaned against the tiny-to him-sinks, hoping not to break them. He heard the lock moving on Phil's cubicle and he turned to look. There Frank saw a red eyed, red faced Phil almost-Coulson, wiping tears from his eyes with his sleeve.

"Can I see?" He sniffed.

"Of course." Frank knelt down to the distressed 4th grader and handed him the card. He watched as Phil-now hardly crying-examined the card, flicking it from front to back.

"I haven't got _this_ card." Phil said in an almost whisper.

"Have it, then." Frank smiled and Phil forced a smile back. "But there's one condition." Frank raised his eyebrows and watched Phil's face fall. "You come back to my office and I'll make you a nice hot chocolate." The little boy threw his arms around Frank, who didn't quite know how to respond, but decided a pat on the back sufficed. "Come on then." He said, standing up. The distraught little boy grabbed Frank's hand tightly. "I'm not your daddy, Phil."

"I know." Phil whispered. "I just don't want you to leave me." Frank's heart almost broke at the sound of those words. Phil, a usually happy and excitable 9 year old, sounded so... Broken. And he didn't know how to fix him.

The pair emerged from the restrooms, Phil still clinging on tightly to Frank's hand. Outside, Mr. Selvig adjusted himself.

"I know you want to hold Frank's hand, but you have to let go." Mr. Selvig said.

"But he promised me hot chocolate." Phil pouted.

"You can come to my office next period, Phil. Right now, I'm busy."

"I'll make sure to send you, Phil." Mr. Selvig put a comforting hand on Phil's shoulder. "Now go back to class." Phil nodded sadly and walked away. The two staff members waited for the young boy to be out of earshot before they began talking again.

"How is he, Frank?"

"Clingy." Was Frank's blunt response. "Something's happened to the adoption and I'm going to find out exactly what."

"How will you get it out of him?" Erik asked, causing Frank to raise an eyebrow. "More trading cards?"

"Yup. I got a whole drawer full of vintage _Justice League_ trading cards."

"You won't for long." Erik smiled.

"Damn right I won't."

"So I'll send him by in an hour?"

"Yeah and send the self proclaimed 'Star Lord' after him. You said something's bugging him too, right?" Erik nodded. "Good. See you around, Erik."

"You too, Frank."Erik calmly began to walk to his class and rounded the corner before he saw Phil standing outside the door, clutching the card Frank gave him tightly but delicately.

"Phil, are you okay?" Phil nodded and looked down. "Shall we go in?" Phil's eyes move up to see his teacher. He nodded again. Mr. Selvig opened the door to his classroom and let the young boy in before walking in himself. As soon as he entered the room however, he noticed everyone go silent and all eyes went on Phil.

"Phil, is it true?" Someone asked.

"Phil, tell us!" Someone else demanded. Soon almost everyone in the classroom was shouting at and demanding something off the emotionally fragile 9 year old.

"Enough!" The voice of their teacher booming around the classroom was enough to scare the kids back into silence. "I don't want you harassing Phil and I don't want to hear any _stories _of you harassing Phil." Mr. Selvig was signing as he spoke, to ensure Clint also got the message. "He's going through a rough time and I know all or most of you are as well. Show some empathy." Mr. Selvig turned to Phil. "Go sit down." He gestured to Phil's desk with a nod of his head. Phil sat down nervously. Clint signed over to Phil.

_Are you alright? _Clint looked at his friend with concern.

_Yeah, Clint. I'm fine. _Phil sighed.

_Something's happened with your family. _Phil looked shocked at how quickly Clint guessed. _I can read you like a book, Phil._

_Yes. _Phil looked down.

_Wanna tell me? I'm your best friend after all. _Clint offered Phil a comforting smile.

Phil sighed and his shoulders dropped. _My mother wants me back. _

_Phil, I'm sorry. _Clint's eyes widened in horror. He knew what this meant for Phil. His own father was abusive towards him before his mother moved him and his brother out of their home. He knew that being removed from the Coulsons would kill Phil inside, especially when Phil already knew himself as a member of the Coulson family. Clint could just feel his heart breaking for his best friend and he fought back tears.

_Nothing you can do about it, Clint. _Phil looked defeated.

_Yes there is. I can support you. _Clint smiled over to Phil. Phil gave a small smile in return.

"Right class. For the benefit of Sam, this is Mathematics class and for the benefit of _all_ of you, we're gonna tackle long division! Yay!" Mr. Selvig said. Groans came from all over the classroom. Even from Tony.

_I will always be here for you, Phil. Like Bucky and Steve say, 'till the end of the line'. _Phil smiled at the inside joke. The first real smile he'd given since he first found out the news from his social worker.

* * *

After Mathematics, Erik made good on his promise to send Phil to Frank. However, since Phil and Clint both refused to be separated, he ended up sending them both. It was recess and the kids were playing outside, so Erik thought it would be best to get some things ready for the next period, which was science. He smiled when he realized just how involved Tony and Bruce would be. Erik was interrupted from his thoughts by the sound of metal being hit against wood. He looked in the doorway and saw Bucky.

"You miss Steve, huh?" Mr. Selvig sighed.

"I'm not here for me, Sir." Mr. Selvig's expression turned from one of pity to one of confusion. "I'm here because of Star Lord."

"Why?"

"He's too proud to approach you on his own, Sir." Mr. Selvig gave a small smile. He knew how much trouble Star Lord could actually be.

"Where is he, Bucky?"

"In the hallway. He's just sitting down. And he's got a raccoon."

"A raccoon?" Mr Selvig's expression flashed quickly from confusion, to panic and then to realization. "The 1st grader?"

"I think he said his name was 'Rocky' or something?" Bucky shrugged.

"Yeah, that's Rocket Raccoon." Mr. Selvig stood up and walked from his desk and over to the one armed child. Bucky then led him to the sullen looking Star Lord, sitting on the floor in the halls against the wall. Indeed, the first grader raccoon, Rocket was sat next to him, talking to him.

"Come on, you're gonna miss recess... You're gonna, you're gonna..." The mammal looked up at Mr. Selvig who was standing over the pair.

"I'm Mr. Selvig. It's nice to finally meet you, Rocket, I've heard a lot about you. But why don't you go now back to Mr. Odinson's class while I keep Peter busy, yes?"

"Alright. I'm going, I'm going." Rocket said, picking himself off the floor. Mr. Selvig caught sight of Rocket's tail. "Yeah, I have a tail, so what?" Rocket said defensively.

"I never said having a tail was a bad thing, Rocket. Now go to Mr. Odinson's class."

The first grader mumbled as he walked away. Mr. Selvig crouched down next to Peter. "Star Lord." He said gently.

"Mr. Selvig." Peter looked up at his teacher.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"No."

"Is it your mother? Has her condition got worse?" Mr. Selvig put his hand on Peter's shoulder comfortingly.

"No, Sir."

"What is it then? You can tell me. I won't tell anyone except Frank."

"I-it's hard." Peter sighed.

"You're having trouble coping?" Peter nodded and Erik sighed. He hadn't had Star Lord's misfortune. He was raised with his siblings by two parents, one of which was still alive, and had a happy childhood. On the other hand, Peter was 10 and he already had his father walk out on him and now his mother had terminal stage 4 cancer. It was worse on Peter as well, since he was an only child he had no siblings he could talk to, nobody who was going through the same thing and who understood what he was feeling. Because Erik sure as hell didn't.

* * *

**A/N: Since Phil is Clint's handler in SHIELD, I wanted them to have a close relationship like that. I work with little kids (between the ages of 5-8) and they all have mouths like sailors. So I figured why shouldn't one of them swear? **

**Heimdall seemed the obvious choice for security, since in all my schools, colleges and even now I'm in university, the security guard always knew what was going down at any place in the building. ****And the school counselor is Punisher. **


	3. Reputation

Loki woke up early that morning. So early that nobody else was awake. He crept downstairs and his dog came up to him and licked his hands. "Hey, Sleipnir." He whispered, happily crouching down to his dog. Sleipnir the dog climbed onto Loki's knee and started licking his face. The young boy laughed as the weight of the dog pushed him down onto the floor. He began laughing as the dog crawled on top of him, licking all over his face. "Sleipnir no!" He laughed. "That tickles"

"Good to see you having fun, Brother." Loki tilted his head to see his brother Thor standing in the doorway.

"Thor, what are you doing up so early?"

"I should ask the same thing of you, Brother."

Loki pushed his Labrador dog off himself and stood up. "Do Mother and Father know you have awakened? Are they awake also?" Loki asked.

"No, as far as I'm aware, they both are still asleep." Thor said quietly in exchange for his usual loud booming voice. "Have you seen Fenrir?"

"Loki, Brother..." Thor paused. "Did you _lose_ your pet dog?"

"Thor, I never _said_ I lost my dog, I just asked if you had possibly seen him."

"He's not upstairs, unless he's in Mother and Father's room." Thor mumbled.

"Hel is asleep on my bed, still?"

"Indeed she is, Brother." Thor smiled at the thought of the little black cat.

"Leave her be, then."

"So now that things have settled down at school, are you planning on carrying out your big prank any time soon?" Thor asked eagerly.

"You'll find out." Loki said, a devious grin plastered on his face. "You'll find out soon."

* * *

Steve awoke that morning to sunlight pouring in on his face. His mother was opening the curtains. Steve moaned in protest.

"Come on, Steven." His mother encouraged. "You have to get up some time."

"And I choose later." He grumbled.

"There's no choice here." She said firmer.

"Fine." Steve groaned. His bed sheets fell off his thin form as he sat up. A look of pity briefly passed over his mother's face.

"Come on. Breakfast." She smiled as she left the room.

Steve entered the main room of the apartment he called home and sat down at the small two person table at the edge of the kitchenette. He was wearing a blue t-shirt with a white star over the chest, tucked into blue jeans, themselves being held up by a grey belt. His mother took one look at him and sighed. She couldn't help but feel sorry for her son. He'd just got out of hospital yesterday and she was forcing him to go to school again the next day.

"So what _is _breakfast?" he asked.

"Today? Toast." His mother replied.

"Yay." Steve rolled his eyes sarcastically.

"Come on, Steve." His mother said. "I'm trying here."

"I hate Al Qaeda." Steve says under his breath as he folds his arms on the table. He huffs angrily as he rests his head on his arms.

"I know you do, Steve." His mother moved out of the relatively small kitchenette and carefully rubbed her hand on her son's shoulder. She knew she'd been lonely since Steve's father died in the Iraq war, but she couldn't imagine how it was for Steve. At least she knew her husband, Steve never knew his father. She also knew that the 7 year anniversary of his death was coming up. Someone knocked the door.

"Sarah?" A voice called. "Sarah, I know you're here, I can smell burning toast."

Sarah walked over to the front door of her apartment and answered it. "Julie. What a surprise." Sarah said with a puzzled look on her face. She noticed how upset Julie looked. "What's the matter?"

"They're trying to take my boy away!" Julie whispered loudly.

"Philip?" Julie nodded.

"Rob and I are absolutely devastated."

"Come in, Julie." Sarah offered, moving aside. "Sit on the couch, I'll be there in a minute." Sarah turned to her son. "Steve." She said softly. Her son turned to look at her with big, blue, sad eyes. "Something's happened to Julie and Rob. I'll be here to listen to you after work."

"You never have time for me any more." Steve sniffled.

"That's not true, Steve."

"I wish Dad never joined the army." Steve sighed.

"I know, Steve. So do I." Sarah said, rubbing her arm soothingly on her 9 year old son's shoulder. Steve slid down from his chair, walked over to the couch and picked up a pair of white Converse.

"Rob is taking Phil to school now, if you want to tag along, Steve." Julie said to the sullen 4th grader. Steve nodded as he tied his laces. "They're going to pick up Clint and then get breakfast."

"Okay." Steve said coldly as he grabbed his red hoodie that was draped over his chair.

"Have you got your inhaler?" Sarah asked, gently holding her son back. He gave a small nod. "Good. See you later, Steve." She smiled. Steve smiled half-heartedly in return.

* * *

Bruce entered the classroom a little late than usual. Sif, Steve, Clint, Phil, Hank and Maria were already there.

"Did you hear about Wade?" Hank asked as soon as Bruce stepped foot through the door.

"Wade?" Bruce asked as he lowered his backpack slightly. "That hyperactive, tiny little guy in third grade-the one who always talks to himself?"

"Yeah, that's the one." Hank nodded.

"What about him?" Bruce asked.

"Well..."

"He caught fire." Maria blurted out. Hank nodded.

"Essentially, this." Hank shrugged. "Apparently he's in the hospital with really bad burns. His aunt told my mother-they're friends."

"Is he going to die?" Bruce asked, dropping his backpack in shock.

"I don't think so." Sif added. "I think that he is just badly hurt."

"Probably be back here soon." Maria shrugged.

"Wanna take a guess how it happened?" Hank raised his eyebrow.

"I'm willing to bet it's something like he was jumping around and hit some flames and they spread." Bruce picked up his backpack.

"Yeah, kind of. He _was_ jumping around, and fell into his aunt's fireplace." Hank replied. Bruce rolled his eyes. "The burns are all on his back. But apparently they're pretty bad."

"God, poor Wade, even though it _was _pretty predictable." Bruce pulled out his chair. "Poor little guy. Really feel bad for him."

"Yeah, I know." Hank sighed. "He may be an annoying little turd sometimes, but he's benign."

"Benign?" Sif asked. "What the hell does _that_ mean?"

"Benign means harmless, Sif." Bruce explained. "Wade is annoying, he jumps around a lot, he's very talkative and even goes so far as to talk to himself, he's impulsive and his attention is always drawn to other things whenever anyone tries to explain something important to him... But all that said, he's generally just... Harmless."

"I know what Wade can be like." Sif said. "He never really hurt anybody. Although, if you put him in an interrogation room, there would be no need for 'good cop, bad cop'. Just Wade talking would be enough to drive the criminal over the edge and confess his or her crimes." Everyone laughed as Tony entered the room.

"Hey, I'm not going to give you free money. Tell me what you're laughing at."

"Wade's in hospital." Hank said.

"Wade who?"

"Wade Wilson, the hyper kid in third grade."

"The one who when he sees you talks your ear off and constantly changes the subject?"

"That's the one."

"What happened?"

"He was jumping about and got burned apparently." Bruce said as he opened his backpack. He turned to Tony and adjusted his glasses. "From what Hank told me, he's gonna be okay as the burns are on his back."

"Damn." Tony shook his head as he put one hand into his jeans pocket. "But something like this was bound to happen sooner or later." Tony walked over to his desk. "I mean, remember in October? When he climbed that wall?"

"Yeah, he fell off, didn't he?" Phil shrugged.

"Pretty sure he _jumped_ off." Maria said.

"Yeah, he did." Hank rolled his eyes. "And he broke his arm. It was just after he got out of the cast from breaking his ankle. Like a week or something."

"He doesn't like _not_ to be injured, then." Tony said.

"Nah, he's just impulsive. In other words, he does stupid things in the heat of the moment and doesn't realize that he'll get hurt." Bruce adjusted his glasses again and set his bag back down on the floor. "Or he _could _just simply have a death wish."

"Speaking of 'death wish', you got Wade Wilson in this year's dead pool?" Tony asked.

"No, I don't." Bruce said as he kicked his backpack under his desk. "Because although I'm not denying I that think he's got a death wish, alas, Wade isn't a celebrity." He sighed and added "If he_was_ a celebrity, no doubt he'd be on there."

As everyone kept discussing the injured third grader, Clint tapped Phil on the shoulder.

_What's going on?_ He signed.

_Wade's been hurt, apparently._ Phil signed back.

_That weird kid in third grade? _Clint signed, with a look of confusion. _The one who's always bouncing about and talks non-stop?_

_Yeah that's him. _Phil clarified with a smirk. He knew that Clint could tell that Wade talked a lot because he can lip read. Actually, Clint even told him a few times that it was hard to understand Wade because he talked too fast and that even when Wade was completely alone, he still saw him talk to himself.

_How bad?_ Clint was concerned, understandably.

_Burns. On his back._

_Third degree?_

_I don't know, Clint. Nobody seems to._

_Who told you, Phil?_

_Hank. He told everyone. _Phil sighed. _Apparently his mother heard it from Wade's aunt. Or something._

_Poor Wade. I feel bad for him now. _Clint briefly hung his head. _Although it was going to happen sooner or later._

_Why say that?_

_He broke his arm jumping off a wall last year._ Phil smiled. That's _exactly _what Hank said not one minute ago.

_Yeah, that's what Hank said._

_Can't hide from the truth, Coulson. _The two boys shared a laugh.

* * *

In the staff room however, the atmosphere was a bit more somber. Some staff were crowded around the coffee machine, Frank Castle the counselor included. Erik walked in on their conversation.

"According to Mrs. Wilson, her son has 10% third degree burns and 7% second degree burns on the back of his body."

"No way!" The second grade teacher May Parker said. "I taught Wade last year and I always_ knew_ he could be a handful. He was very hyperactive but I never thought _anything _like this could ever happen to him."

"I know what you mean." Peggy Carter, the fifth grade teacher said. "I found him last year, curled up in a ball on the playground just after recess when it was my turn to oversee playground duty. He had his hands over his head. I managed to pry them off and there was a huge gash on his scalp. His hair was wet with blood."

"I remember that." Erik Selvig, the 4th grade teacher said. "You came to me for help."

"Yes, I did. How did he say he did it?"

"Tripped backwards over a rock because he was running backwards." Erik rolled his eyes. That wasn't the first time he'd had to deal with any of Wade's injuries. Wade was always sporting bandages, Band Aids, stitches or a cast-sometimes even two. Nobody had ever seen him without either.

"Didn't Wade miss a few months of school back in 2013?" Secretary Mary Storm asked. "Playing in traffic or something?"

"Yeah, he was hit by a car and broke his arm, his ribs and his femur." May replied and took a sip of coffee. "He was absent because he had to have surgery." She set her coffee cup down. "And a body cast."

"And the same day he came back to school, he left halfway through the day?" Mary said uncertainly.

"No... That's-That's right." May nodded. "He tripped over playing and chipped his front tooth. I think he had to have stitches in his upper lip as well.

"And don't forget the broken arm." Erik said. "It wasn't even that long ago. He climbed a wall and jumped off it." He rolled his eyes and grunted. "I don't know what he _thought_ was going to happen, but he broke his arm and had to miss school in favor of surgery."

Everyone stayed silent until Peggy spoke up again. "Do you think it's strange that we remember _one student's_ unfortunate mishaps?"

May snorted. "It's _Wade Wilson_." She emphasized. "I defy _anyone _to forget_ anything _Wade Wilson has done."

Erik looked down at his wristwatch. "I'd better get to class." He said. "Most of my kids are pretty close to Wade, I think I'll just have them do craft projects for him today and carry on the lesson plan tomorrow."

"Yeah, that's what Irani's doing." Erik said under his breath as he set down his coffee mug before walking out the door. All the other staff followed shortly after.

* * *

"Miss, where's Wade?" A brown haired Asian girl asked.

"I haven't seen him in a few days, is he sick?" An Asian boy wearing a _San Francisco Giants_ baseball cap asked.

"More likely, he's hurt himself again." A blond girl said.

"I can believe that. He's _always_ hurting himself." An overweight boy with dark brown hair said as he frowned.

"Kids!" Came a voice at the front of the classroom. It was their teacher and Vice Principal Mrs. Rael. She was standing next to the teaching assistant Miss Preston. Everyone hushed. "I've had to give so many of these talks, they should seem routine by now, but yes, Wade has _indeed_ managed to find a new way to hurt himself."

"And it means that Wade won't be in school for a little while." Miss Preston said. "Again." She added under her breath. The Asian boy's hand went up again.

"Yes, Tadashi?" Miss Preston said.

"What happened _this_ time?" He asked.

"He burned himself." She explained. The blond girl put her hand in the air. "Emma?"

"That _still_ doesn't explain what _happened_ to him, y'know, the circumstances surrounding the burns." Emma raised her eyebrow.

"He fell backwards onto a fire." Mrs. Rael said, keen to get off the topic. "Now, today will be..." Mrs. Rael paused as she saw a hand shoot into the air. It belonged to the overweight boy.

"Yes, Harold."

"Happy. It's Happy." The boy reminded. "How bad is he hurt? I mean, is it worse than usual? Worse than... _The_ cast?" Mrs. Rael sighed. Happy looked really anxious asking the question. She knew exactly which injury of Wade's that Happy was referring to-the fractured ulna. It looked so painful, mostly because there was metal framework poking out of his cast. Wade seemed to soldier on, but admitted to Frank halfway through his treatment that his arm was really hurting him. Then he got all happy, talkative and excitable when Frank let him play Solitaire on his computer. Frank had admitted, albeit jokingly to Irani that afternoon that he was one bad joke away from blowing the kid's brains out because he was so overbearing.

"No. I'm not sure." Mrs. Rael admitted. She saw the Asian girl's hand go into the air. "No more questions, Melinda." She said sternly. A few more students' hands went up. "Wanda, Leiko, Pietro, I'm _not_ answering questions." Their hands went down immediately. "So today, we're gonna make get-well cards for your classmate..."

"But you said he wasn't badly hurt." Another Asian boy pointed out.

"Shiro's right." Tadashi said. "We only did this for Wade once and it was last year."

"That was when he got hit by a car." Happy said, the fear returning to his eyes. "That means he _is_ badly hurt!"

"No!" Mrs. Rael said, panicking. "No, it's just I don't have any lessons planned for you today." She said quickly. "I was going to have you draw pictures and now we can do that _and _give them to your classmate."

"So he's okay?"

"I never said that, Happy."

"So he's going to die?!" Happy began to cry.

Irani sighed and whispered to Emily "Go get Frank." Emily nodded and left the room.

"Where's Miss Preston gone?" A boy with an East European accent asked.

"She's gone to get Frank, Pietro."

"The Punisher?"

"He _does_ deal with some aspects of discipline, yes. But he's the school counselor. And I'd like you to treat him with respect." Mrs. Rael said firmly. "That goes for all of you."

* * *

Everyone-sans Rhodey-had arrived in the 4th grade classroom and were all talking about the scandal that was "Wadegate". Sam Wilson couldn't really comment, since he didn't know Wade Wilson at all. Sure they shared the same last name, but that was about it. He didn't know Wade. Nor did he know a thing about him-well, judging by what was being said, he sounded like some kind of mentalcase who wasn't really worth knowing anyway. Judging Wade was not what Sam's parents would've wanted him to do, but hey, they're not around. God was and he'd pay for his sins later, but for now he would just judge away. Mr. Selvig walked in and put his satchel on his desk.

"I'm sure by now you've all heard about Wade Wilson." He sighed. "Please don't try to let it distract you from your work." He looks at the class. "Today, we will be having a crafts morning. You will be making 'get well' presents for Wade." Sam's hand shot in the air.

"But I don't know Wade."

"Consider yourself lucky." Mr. Selvig muttered. "Wade is in 3rd grade. And unless you leave soon, you'll be meeting him." Mr. Selvig wandered over to the art supply closet at the rear of the room and opened it. "Does anyone have any questions?" Phil's hand went into the air. "Yes, Phil?"

"Are we going to visit Wade, or not?"

"As a class, no. But you can go individually with your parents-provided it's okay with Wade's." Mr. Selvig took a pile of paper out the art closet and began handing them out. "Now, everyone, get drawing and I want to see only nice things." The ginger haired girl sitting next to Bruce put her hand up. "Pepper?" Mr. Selvig asked. Pepper! _That_ was Pepper! Sam smiled.

"Can we use other supplies, like crayons and pipe cleaners and glue?"

"Just don't use too much." The teacher said and smiled to the little girl.

* * *

That lunchtime, Sam found himself-once again-sitting with Phil, Clint and their buddies, Steve, Bucky, Tony, Maria, Nick, Bruce, Natasha, Thor and Loki.

"So you're _really_ going to go through with it, Loki?" Tony asked as he took a bite out of his sandwich.

"He says he will. I have no reason to doubt him." Thor said unintelligibly as he devoured a _Pop Tart_.

"He's going to be suspended." Nick said, as he picked up his juice box.

"Or expelled." Maria added.

"That too." Nick took a sip of his grape juice.

Clint signed to Phil who smiled and shook his head. "He's an idiot, isn't he?" Clint asked out loud. Phil simply nodded. "And this day is about Wade, isn't it?" Phil nodded again. "Isn't this just taking attention from him?" Natasha, who was sitting opposite Clint, nodded and began to sign to him. "Loki, you're an idiot, you know?" Loki raised his eyebrow.

"You know he didn't mean it like that, Brother." Thor said.

"I know." Loki smirked. "That's why I'll show you all that this is gonna be the best prank I've ever pulled." Loki pushed his chair out and walked away, leaving his green hoodie still draped at the back of his chair. Thor grabbed it quickly and put it in his lap before moving back to his _Pop Tarts_.

"Did any of you guys catch the new _Disney_ movie?" Bruce asked after a brief period of silence.

* * *

**A/N: Yes, this means kiddie Deadpool will be appearing later on in the story. In fact, he and Cable get his own spin off. I really hope I get Deadpool right as he's one of my favorite comic book characters. But then again, I've been told I'm like him so often because of my ADHD so I don't think it'll be much of a problem. Right now, I just wanted to introduce his reputation to Sam. Have him hear of the infamous Wade Wilson a while before they actually meet. And before you ask, yeah Wade Wilson will look completely normal, besides a few (more than most) childhood battle /**

**Most of kiddie Deadpool's injuries are from either myself or people I know/knew. The jumping off a wall thing happened to me when I was about 9. The wall was about 7 foot and I was just shy of 4 foot tall myself. I broke my wrist. The falling into fireplace thing happened to a friend. Though he had lesser burns than I gave kiddie Deadpool because he probably got medical attention /**

**The next chapter will focus on Loki's prank. I'm making him closer to the Norse God of Mischief Loki in that he's neither good nor bad and enjoys pranks, though no worries as he'll still retain some movie Loki including that all crucial brotherly relationship with Thor that the actual Loki figure didn't have (he and Thor were BFFs, rather than brothers). I have some big plans for Loki in the future and they involve scenes with such characters as Bruce, Clint, Tony, Rhodey, Steve, Bucky and Skye from AOS as well as a dramatic chapter with Phil and another dramatic chapter with Thor. So effectively, he's going to be a hybrid Loki. The next chapter will also focus on Steve a bit more. Right now, he's angsty and I don't like that. I want to bring him out of that angst so he can get back to life.**


	4. Aftermath

Loki crept into the the 4th grade classroom and pulled out a permanent marker, a thumbtack and some stink bombs from his backpack. He giggled wickedly as he put his plan into action.

* * *

After lunch break, Erik was surprised to see all his kids waiting outside the classroom.

"What's going on? Why aren't you inside?" He asked. "Did I lock up?"

"No, Sir." A girl with a blonde pixie cut said. "It just _really_ stinks in there."

"Because it's school? School smells, I've heard that a lot over my career, Carol." Mr. Selvig put his hand on the door handle but Carol pulled him back.

"No, Sir, it _literally_ smells in there." She said. "Like someone took a dump in there or something."

"Carol, I'm sure it's not _that_ bad." He smiled as he opened the door. Then he caught the smell. "Holy freaking Jesus what the hell?!" He shouted as he pinched his nose shut. "That is _bad_!"

"Sir, what do we do?"

"Get the janitor." He said softly. "Now." Bucky gave his teacher a salute and ran off down the hall to find the janitor. "Nick, go to Ms. Carter's room and ask for her fan. Hank, go ask Mrs. Rael for _her_ fan and Stephen, go ask Mr. Odinson for his fan. Maria, go to Principal Xavier's office and explain what's going on." The kids all broke from the group and went the way they each needed to go. "The rest of you, go in the classroom, sit down and open all the windows."

May Parker opened the door to her room and stuck her head out the door. "Is everything okay?" She asked.

"Fine, Mrs. Parker." He said with a sigh. "A stink bomb or two has just been let off in my classroom."

"Any idea of the culprit?"

"I can guess." He said.

"Let me know if you need anything."

"Will do." Mrs. Parker was just about to close her door when Mr. Selvig stopped her.

"Mrs. Parker, wait!" Mrs. Parker walked into the hallway. "Can I borrow your fan?" Mr. Selvig asked. She sighed and rolled her eyes and walked back into her classroom.

"All of you." Mr. Selvig said. "Into the classroom."

Everyone else entered the classroom and opened the windows. Mrs. Parker brought her fan over. "It smells really bad in here." She coughed. "What happened?" She asked as she handed the fan to Mr. Selvig.

"Stink bomb."

"You said it was a stink bomb earlier, but are you _sure_ it's a stink bomb?"

"At this point? Not particularly."

Mrs. Parker grunted before leaving. "Nothing against you, Mr. Selvig, it just really... Smells. So putrid. Worse than Ben's socks." She muttered as she dashed out the room.

"Sir." Maria said, holding her nose as she walked in. "Principal Xavier's here."

"Professor Xavier." Mr. Selvig addressed the wheelchair using educator, currently in his doorframe.

"Dr. Selvig." The principal said back. "Let's skip the formalities here, Selvig. Tell me why it reeks in here of weeks old dead hamster."

"One of my students broke in and let off a stink bomb."

"Which one?"

"I-ah... I don't know." Mr. Selvig said. "Not for sure. But I have an idea."

"The Odinson boys?" Xavier said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, them. Also the Barton and Coulson boys." Mr. Selvig rubbed the back of his neck. "The Stark boy and his friends the Potts girl and the Hogan boy in third grade are also suspects, as are the LeBeau and Wagner boys in 5th grade. They always said they'd get back at me." He adds.

"This is the part where you'd say the Wilson boy."

"I know, Xavier." Mr. Selvig sighed. "It's weird not having him around."

"It is indeed."

"It still also might've been the Summers boy in 3rd grade. Who hangs around with Wilson." Mr. Selvig muttered. "So how do I find the culprit?"

"If none of them admit on their own, then punish the lot of them." Xavier said. "Talk to Carter and tell her to send Wagner and LeBeau to you, then talk to Rael and tell her to send Hogan and Summers to you. Punish them all until the culprit confesses. Then punish him or her accordingly." He said, devoid of emotion. He left right as the janitor arrived and Mr. Selvig began talking to him.

Bucky entered the room silently and pinching his nose and sat down in his seat next to Steve.

"What's Kraven the Garbage Hunter doing here?" Steve whispered.

"I couldn't find any of the the other janitors." Bucky admitted.

"But Kraven?"

"Yes, Steve. It's Kraven. Does it matter?" Steve shrugged.

"He just creeps me out. There's something off about him."

"There's something off about that chef Blonsky too, but I don't go about complaining about him."

"There's something off about _all_ the chefs, Bucky. And for that matter, the janitors." Steve shuddered. "Like... Like they're all in some top-secret evil villain group-like the _Legion of Doom_." Bucky snorted and tried to cover it up as a sneeze.

"Why would the _Legion of Doom_ be here?" Bucky asked, still smirking.

"I dunno." Steve shrugged. "Maybe they're after the technology in your arm? Or Nathan's arm. Or Misty's arm." Steve picked up the pencil on his desk and began doodling on a blank piece of paper lying on his desk. "Or maybe they're looking to kidnap Heimdall the security guard because he's all seeing and all knowing. Or Principal Xavier since I'm _sure_ he's telepathic."

"What makes you say that?" Bucky asked.

"He's always one step ahead of you." Steve replied, still scribbling furiously on the paper. "He knows if you're planning to cut class or if you're going to pull a prank."

"He's like a thousand years old." Bucky said. "I'm sure he's seen everything before."

"Nuh-uh!" Steve called out, picking up a green coloring pencil. "Telepathic." He smirked. "And there's special technology in Scott's glasses that make him see normal, maybe they're after _that_too!"

"Who are?" Bucky folded his arms. "The _Legion of Doom_?" He chuckled.

"No." Steve said innocently, proudly holding up his drawing. It was a skull head with tentacles protruding from it, all colored in dark green. "Hydra."

* * *

Lessons went on as normal that afternoon, even if the fourth graders _did_ have to eventually move-to the cafeteria-while the janitors got to work eliminating the smell left behind by the stink bombs. Steve had successfully managed to convince his class that the lunchtime workers and the janitors were part of the top-secret evil super villain group-that he had just invented in his own mind-called Hydra. The class (his friends) then decided they needed to protect the school by having a super spy organization of their own. An organization they democratically decided to name Shield. Because apparently, shields protect things. Who knew?

Steve got to work designing the logo of Shield, but every time he thought he made one good enough, something was usually wrong with it, so he ended up tossing all the drawings out. In the middle of his twelfth drawing, Mr. Selvig stood over him with a stern look on his face. Steve looked up sheepishly.

"What is this supposed to be, Steven?" Mr. Selvig asked, picking up Steve's drawing. It was a grey eagle with its wings spread open, around it a thick, black circle.

"Shield, Sir." Steve said quietly.

"Shield? What's Shield?" Mr. Selvig demanded.

"Nothing, Sir."

"I've got my eye on you, Mr. Rogers." He said, slamming the drawing back on Steve's desk. "Now pay attention. You'll need to use long division out in the real world." He walked over to check on Bruce. "Probably." He muttered under his breath.

* * *

In the third grade class, Mrs. Rael was letting her kids do art. They'd mostly all finished their "Get Well" art for their fellow classmate, Wade. Happy was nervously coloring in at the back of the class with Tadashi, Nathan and Melinda.

"What're you drawing, Tadashi?" Melinda asked.

"I'm drawing a picture of a dog." He replied. "The dog I want but can't have because Aunt Cass owns a cat and she says they won't get along." What about you?"

"Phil." Melinda shrugged.

"Coulson? In 4th Grade?" Tadashi asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

"No reason." Tadashi smirked. "What are you drawing, Nathan?"

"Me and Wade if we were superheroes." Nathan shrugged. "See." He said as he picked up his drawing and held it aloft. The drawing had two people, one of them clearly Nathan. He's drawn himself looking like a traditional superhero, eye mask, cape, boots, tights and underpants over them and all in yellow and blue. "That's Wade." He pointed to a figure covered in a red and black bodysuit and a red mask.

"Why is his face red?" Melinda asked.

"It's a mask." Nathan shrugged.

"It looks like he has red skin. Or is bleeding real bad." She smirked. Nathan put the drawing back on the table and picked the black crayon back up. He scribbled something on the paper before holding it back up.

"Better now?" He asked. The figure supposed to be Wade now had two large black circles covering the left and the right sides.

"What are those black splodges supposed to be?" Tadashi asked, pointing to one of the circles.

"Wade's eyes." Nathan smiled.

"Those patches are _way_ too big to be his eyes." Melinda argued. "Also, Wade's eyes are brown."

"Whatever." Nathan huffed. "I think it looks cool."

"I think he looks like some sort of droopy eyed, stroke monster." Tadashi said, trying hard to suppress his laughter.

"Or a zombie." Melinda added.

"Yeah, a zombie!" Tadashi smiled, pushed further to the point of uncontrollable laughter. "You could call him Dead Pool."

"Dead Pool!" Melinda squealed, also trying hard to stifle her laughter. "That's brilliant. Nice one, Tadashi." Tadashi flashed Melinda an expression between proud of himself and struggling not to laugh.

"Shut up, guys." Nathan folded his arms sulkily.

"Hey, Happy." Melinda said. "We haven't seen your drawing yet." Happy looked at Melinda and without breaking his stare, picked up his drawing and held it up. The top of the sheet was greyish black and the bottom was white with sprinkles of red. There were jagged structures-which looked like smoldering ruins-and grey clouds in the middle and what looked to be an undetonated nuclear bomb at the bottom.

"What... What is that?"

"Nuclear winter." Happy said, emotionlessly. "See the mushroom cloud?" He asked pointing to the cloud. Now that they thought about it, the grey cloud _did_ look an awful lot like a mushroom cloud.

"Wow." Tadashi shook his head in shock. "Considering your nickname's 'Happy', you're the complete opposite of it."

"Yeah, that's bleak, man." Melinda sighed.

"Class, listen up." Mrs. Rael said loudly. "I've just had an email from Mr. Selvig, the 4th grade teacher. Apparently, he wants to see Happy Hogan and Nathan Summers as soon as possible, so Happy and Nathan, go to Mr. Selvig's class immediately.

* * *

In the fifth grade class, Ms. Carter was having a class reading session of Swallows and Amazons. A knock at the door disturbed this.

"Come in." The door opened to reveal Darcy Lewis of fourth grade. "Darcy, what a surprise." Ms. Carter said. "What brings you here?"

"I have a note from Mr. Selvig for you." Darcy said as she nervously shuffled into the classroom and robotically handed the note to Ms. Carter. Ms. Carter took the note and read it over as Darcy shuffled out of the room. Ms. Carter's eyes widened as she read it. "Remy, Kurt, apparently Mr. Selvig wants to see you immediately in his classroom."

"I already paid my dues with him last year." Kurt whined in his thick German accent.

"Yeah, it's not fair that we have to go back to him." Remy huffed.

"It doesn't say anything about repeating 4th grade." Ms. Carter said. "Go to him. Find out why he wants you. I'm sure it's not as bad as you think it is."

"Easy for you to say." Remy rolled his eyes.

"Remy LeBeau. You are 11 years old and you have _no_ right to speak to me that way." Ms. Carter said sternly. "I will ensure you have lines upon your return to my classroom."

"Why is is _us_ who have to go to see Mr. Selvig?" Kurt asked, running his hand through his jet black hair.

"I don't know. You two had better go find out." Remy and Kurt both stood up and walked out of the classroom. Walking towards Mr. Selvig's room, Kurt raised his head and started muttering unintelligibly. Well, it was unintelligible to Remy anyway, since Remy didn't speak German. Remy spoke French.

"What are you doing?"

"Praying."

"Why do you need to pray?"

"Because some part of me is telling me we are in trouble with Mr. Selvig." Kurt said. "Remember last year, when we got in trouble with him?" Remy swallowed nervously. He _did _remember when they got in trouble. In fact, he couldn't forget it. The Mashed Potato incident was poised to go down in school lore and he and Kurt were at the center of it.

"I can't forget, Kurt."

"Then you understand why I'm praying to God for our souls to be saved." All Remy could do was nod. Kurt began praying again and ended it with the sign of the cross. They continued in silence for a brief moment before arriving at the classroom. They entered to find all the fourth grade-as they expected-but their classmate Scott's brother-Nathan-and Happy Hogan, both in third grade. And Mr. Selvig, looking at them sternly.

"Sir, what's going on?" Remy asked.

"You know what's going on." Mr. Selvig said coolly. "Go stand by the wall." The two boys did as they were told, feeling they were in trouble for something already.

"Sir, why are we here?" Nathan asked.

"Because one of you pulled a prank." Mr. Selvig said. "One of you let off a stink bomb in the classroom. And now Sergei has to clean up the mess that one-or more-of you has created." He picked up the whiteboard marker and began writing with it, on the whiteboard. "Either one of you could have done it."

"With all due respect, sir." Kurt spoke up. "I didn't do anything. And to my knowledge, neither did Remy."

"Well, in that case, you're free to go back to class." Mr Selvig said cheerfully.

"R-really?" Kurt said skeptically.

"No." Mr. Selvig said sternly. "You will stay here until I deem you to be innocent. And the same goes for everyone else." He said, looking challengingly at the children in his classroom.

* * *

It was the end of the school day and nobody was any closer to figuring out who stink bombed the classroom. Mr. Selvig had got even more mad when he realized he'd been writing on the whiteboard in permanent marker. By law, he had to let everyone go home at the end of the school day and said they would 'reconvene' the next morning-whatever that meant.

Steve was walking home with Bucky, Phil, Clint and Nick. Snow was falling gently from the sky, creating a cold white blanket on the ground. However, Clint and Nick were drinking slushies, while Phil sensibly had his hands shoved in his coat pocket. Bucky's arms were swaying by his sides and it was clear he was only wearing one navy blue mitten.

While everyone else was wrapped up warm, Steve was only wearing his thin red hoodie that he picked up earlier in the day.

"Steve, aren't you cold?" Bucky asked.

"No." Steve said, kicking a snow pile as they passed by it.

"Steve, don't be an idiot." Nick said. "You just got out of hospital yesterday."

"I'm fine." Steve grunted.

"No you're not." Phil said calmly. "We can tell."

"Even _I _can tell there's something wrong with your mood Steve." Clint shrugged. "No matter _how_ much you play it down."

"It's your father, isn't it?" Bucky asked quickly.

"... No." Steve said after a pause.

"Steven Grant Rogers, you had to think about that." Bucky grabbed Steve's arm with his won gloved hand. "Stevie..." He sighed. "We're here for you. All of us."

Steve inhaled deeply. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm fine."

"No you're not, Steve." Phil said. "Even Clint's picking up on it."

"It's not like my mother even cares." Steve tried to pull his arm away from Bucky's grip, only to be stopped by Phil.

"So the problem is with your mother?" Nick asked.

"I don't think she cares about Dad any more." Steve sighed quietly. "Or me."

"Of _course_ she cares about you, Steve." Phil said. It's _my_ mother who doesn't care about me. My _real_ mother, that is."

"Why say that?"

"She wants me back." Phil rubbed the back of his scarfed neck. "I was taken away from her because she never fed me or made sure I was warm. She never hit me though. Not like Bruce's dad does to him and his mom." Steve looked in shock at Phil. "Clint's dad hit him and his brother and mom so he lives away from his dad now. With his brother and mom. Tony's dad ignores him sometimes, but he's busy with work."

"Yeah." Nick nodded. "My father's the gym teacher-well, one of them. I have to do a _lot_ more exercise than _you'll_ ever have to."

"Steve. It'll be okay." Bucky said, putting his mittened hand on Steve's shoulder. "I promise."

* * *

For the rest of the week-and most of the next-everyone in 4th grade was locked down until someone confessed to the pranks. The writing was still on the whiteboard, but the janitors had managed to scrub it mostly off, so it was faded. Kurt and Remy sat sullenly at the back, alongside Happy and Nathan during lunch times and recess.

Around the middle of the week, however, Bucky noticed that Steve was absent and decided to go around to his apartment after school.

"Hey, Steve." Bucky said to his friend as he opened his door. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Steve lied.

"No you're not." Bucky looked at his friend, full of concern. "Is it your asthma?"

"I just wasn't feeling well." Steve said.

"Hang on..." Bucky frowned. "It's the 14th. How could I have been so stupid!" He growled.

"I wanna be alone."

"Nobody wants to be alone on a day like this, Steve." Bucky said gently. "Come on. We're getting flowers." Bucky grabbed his friend's wrist and pulled him out the door gently.

"Let me get my coat." Steve went back into his apartment and re-emerged wearing a red coat and a red, white and blue winter hat.

"Y'ready?" Bucky asked.

"Yeah." Steve sighed. "Where are gonna get flowers from? Or money for flowers?"

"I got $5 in my pocket." Bucky shrugged.

"So whatever we can get for five bucks then?" Bucky nodded.

* * *

Steve and Bucky walked up to a park bench. Steve was carrying a small bouquet of flowers. Bucky wiped some of the snow off the bench and Steve knelt down to set the flowers down gently on the bench. Steve wiped some of the snow off the call plaque on the bench which read

**Sgt Joseph Rogers**

**1976-2007**

**Beloved Son, Husband and Father**

Steve put his arms on the bench and obscured his face. Bucky looked down at his friend whose shoulders were heaving uncontrollably. He put his hand on Steve's back and they both just stood there in silence as the sun went down.

* * *

**A/N: Yes, Nightcrawler also looks normal. He isn't blue and he doesn't have a tail. T****he Nick Fury in the 4th Grade is Nick Fury Jr in the comic books. Some of them are from the comic books, others are from the MCU while others have traits of both, like 4th Grade Nick Fury. And I know that Cable is the future son of Cyclops, but for the purposes of this story, they're brothers. Same with Cassie Lang/Stature, she's the daughter of Scott Lang's Ant Man, but in this story, they're brother and sister.**

**Hydra and SHIELD only exist as a product of the childrens' imaginations. And why not? When I was a that age, we were convinced that our teachers-except two-were all evil aliens out to get us and that we were all either Mutants, Inhumans (keep an eye out for them too, by the way) or from Krypton and we had to protect the world from... We just watched too much X Men movies. It was about then that the first ones came out (showing my age!). So Kraven the Hunter, Red Skull, Abomination, Crossbones... Not really bad guys. Just bad guys in the kids' minds. ****Oh, and with regard to the nuclear winter thing, I knew a guy we called 'Happy' because he was anything but.**

**I don't own any of the characters.**


	5. Rhodey Returns

Almost month had passed and Loki still hadn't pulled any more pranks. Not that he was put off by the punishment he had caused everyone after, he was just waiting for the right moment. And that right moment came just before Valentines Day on what started out as a normal school day.

"Morning, Heimdall." Erik said as he walked through the school doors that morning.

"Morning Erik." The security officer said back. "I just feel like I should warn you, the Wilsons are in Xavier's office."

"The Wilsons?" Erik's voice filled with dread. "The military Wilsons right? Not-not the Canadian ones?"

"Sorry, but it's the Canadian ones."

"Did they have..."

"That little hell raiser with them, yes they did."

"God dammit!" Erik said under his breath. "So Wade's better then?"

"It would appear so."

"Right. Thanks for telling me."

* * *

Everyone was in the 4th grade classroom, still except for Rhodey. Tony had started to worry after around 10 days, but never showed it to the rest of his friends. Mr. Selvig entered the classroom looking frustrated and a little bit fearful.

"Class," He began. "I feel like I should be the one to warn you..." Darcy's hand shot in the air.

"Yes, Darcy?"

"Are we going to die? Like in a nuclear holocaust or something? Are you warning us about World War III?" She asked.

"No." He said. "That's silly. A nuclear holocaust will never happen."

"Then what, Sir?"

"Wade's back." The whole class went silent.

"Why would you need to warn us? He's harmless." Bruce said. "Talkative and irritating, but harmless."

"Are you trying to tell us he's better?" Hank asked.

"Yes, I am." Mr. Selvig said, dropping his satchel onto the table.

"Now... I'm gonna do registration and then we'll check how your plant projects are getting on."

* * *

"Look who's back guys! It's me! Wade Wilson!" Wade shouted happily as he ran into the third grade classroom. "I'm not dead! I'm not dead! I'm not dead! I'm not dead!" He shouted gleefully as he ran around the tables in the classroom. Everyone simply stared at him in shock. Wade then held his arms out and made airplane noises as he weaved through the tables. "Oh look! It's Tadashi!" He said loudly and stopped by Tadashi's table. "Hiya, Tadashi!" Wade grinned, pushing his face towards Tadashi's. Tadashi looked uncomfortable by the whole affair. "How did your January go? I spent a week like fighting for my life or some shit and then I got out of hospital Mom said I drove her crazy and-BUTTERFLY!" He shouted, looking at the poster of a butterfly pinned on the wall of the classroom and began running towards it. However, he saw Happy walk into the room and decided to turn back to him. "Hello, Happy!" Wade shouted in Happy's face. "Where's Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful, Dopey, Sleepy and Doc?" He asked. Happy opened his mouth to respond. "And Snow White of course, where's she? Did you see _Cinderella_ on TV last night, I think it was on like the _Disney Channel_ or something-or no was that _Tangled_? No it was _Boy Meets World_, which I _know_ is not a film, but still. I like _Boy Meets World_, it's a lot better than any of the crapfest that's on Disney Channel or _Nickelodeon_ these days. In fact, the only watchable things on either channel is _Gravity Falls_ and _SpongeBob SquarePants_. _Cartoon Network_ do an alright _Teen Titans_ show and a neat _Batman_ show, but it's not _nearly_ as good as the campy Adam West shows from the 1960s. Are you familiar with shows from the 60s? My grandmother used to watch _Bonanza_, _Bewitched_ and _Beverly Hillbillies_ like all the time. Oh and _I Dream of Jeannie_. What about that Robin Williams Genie in _Aladdin_, huh? Bit of a wild card..."

"Shut up, Wade!" Everyone in the class shouted.

"Class, settle down." Mrs. Rael said walking into the classroom. She was accompanied by Miss Preston, the teaching assistant who closely works with Wade. Everyone went to their seats, calmly-well, except for Wade. Wade insisted on bouncing there, no matter how much Miss Preston told him not to.

* * *

Wade found it hard to sit still in the lessons and took the bandages off his arms a few times, which got him sent down to the nurse. Wade, being Wade, ran there and back, tripping up a few times. Soon, it was lunchtime. As Miss Preston sat down to eat with Wade, he ran off to see the 4th graders.

"Hey there Captain America!" Wade shouted in Steve's ear. "Enjoy the Super Bowl? I did. It was awesome. I was only allowed to watch a little bit because for some reason... Hey, who's this?" He asked, pointing to Sam.

"That's Sam." Natasha said with a smile. She wanted to see how Wade would react on finding out he shared the same last name as Sam.

"What's your last name, Sam?" Wade asked. "My name is Wade Winston Wilson and I am in third grade. I'm 9 years old-I was 9 years old yesterday, actually. I didn't have a party because I was in hospital for a while and my mother was angry that I just kept talking and talking and talking so she sent me back to school and well... Here I am. Hey, did anyone ever..."

"It's Wilson." Sam said loudly.

"Huh?"

"Wilson. My last name is the same as yours. I'm Sam Wilson."

"Are we related?" Wade asked.

"I don't know." Sam asked. "Are we?"

"No." Wade shook his head.

"Then that's your answer." Sam picked up his peanut butter sandwich and took a bite out of it. Everyone stared at Sam. He had managed to do what nobody-not even the staff-had managed to do ever... Stun Wade Wilson into silence. Even Miss Preston-when she came to collect Wade-was amazed that Wade was quiet.

"So Wade." She said. "I'm getting married in the summer." Wade said nothing. "You can come, if you want." Wade poked his mashed potatoes with his fork. "I can't believe I'm suggesting this, but you can look after the rings during the ceremony." Wade looked up at Miss Preston with his big eyes and shook his head. "Wade, I never thought I'd say this, but please talk to me." Wade looked down at his food, leaving the teaching assistant to think over a problem she'd never had before-a silent Wade Wilson.

Meanwhile, over at the 4th graders' table, everyone was still eating. Sam looked up from his sandwich at Steve opposite him.

"Why Captain America?" He asked.

"I support the _New England Patriots_." He shrugged. "Apparently they're the most patriotically American of the football teams, because they're called the _Patriots_ and their team colors are red, white and blue. Supposedly because I support them, that makes me the most America loving, flag waving kid at this school."

"Why Captain though?"

Steve shrugged. "It's better than America Man."

"Some days, I just feel so jealous of Clint." Tony sighed, throwing his fork on the table. "He's deaf. He can't hear Wade's rambling." Phil interpreted Tony's words and Clint snorted before turning to Tony and signing to him.

_Jealous of my non-hearing are you, Stark_? Clint signed smugly. _Not my amazing William Tell abilities with a bow and arrow_?

_William Tell? _Tony signed back, with a puzzled look on his face.

_Where do you think I got the apple on the head trick from, Tony?_ Clint chuckled.

_Robin Hood. No-Katniss. _

_You like Hunger Games?_

_No. _Tony blushed. "I'm gonna go... Bathroom." Tony mumbled before getting up to leave.

"Where's Stark going?" Someone asked. It was Logan, passing the group with his tray of half eaten food.

"Hell if I know." Bruce said. He picked up one of the fries off Tony's plate and ate it.

"I think he's just embarrassed because he'd never heard of William Tell before." Phil shrugged.

"Wow." Logan rolled his eyes. "He's like a billionaire. He must have a massive library at his mansion. I know my parents keep a library. So if he has a library, surely it would have a book on like... Swiss folklore or something."

"Yeah, but maybe it's in Swiss." Natasha suggested.

"Then he can learn Swiss." Logan shrugged. "I can speak like... A million languages."

"Can you speak Swiss?" Sam asked.

Logan paused. "No."

"What about German?" Steve asked. "I can speak some German. And a little Russian."

"Little bit of German. Fluent Russian."

"We need to have a conversation in Russian some day, Logan." Natasha smiled.

"French?" Bruce asked.

"Just a little bit, eh. Hoping to boost that up." Logan pushed his tray up on the table and climbed up into Tony's vacated seat.

"I thought you were Canadian and that _all_ Canadians spoke French." Bruce said.

"Yeah, that's why I can speak a little bit. I only learned the basics before I moved here, to NYC." Bruce nodded. "And as a rule, most Canadians don't speak French. That's those in Quebec. But we do learn the basics. Like bonjour and crap. And you know I'm fluent in ASL." Logan said, signing out his words.

"Huh." Phil nodded thoughtfully. "Pretty cool."

* * *

The next day, Sam entered the classroom to find an unfamiliar looking boy.

"Hey, Wilson!" Tony called out. "Come meet my bestie, Rhodey!"

"Rhodey?" Sam asked walking over to Tony and his friend.

"Yeah, that would be me." Rhodey waved.

"Oh. I'm Sam." Sam nodded. "Sam Wilson."

"I understand your father's in the army?" Rhodey said.

"Yeah, he is."

"Cool. My father's in the air force. And so is Carol's mom." Rhodey smiled. "I wanna go into the air force some day. And so does Carol."

"Really?" Sam asked. "She's never said anything."

"You had a career day yet-you know when everyone talks about what they wanna do when they're older?"

"No..." Sam said thoughtfully.

"Then when you do, expect Carol to talk about fighter jets like her life depends on it!" Rhodey and Tony share a laugh.

"Right, I'm going to... Uh..." Sam pointed to Clint and Phil, who were sat down and waving at him.

"Mister Pym!" Sam heard their teacher shouting from behind he turned around to see Hank standing sheepishly with his head bowed down.

"Sorry, Sir." He mumbled.

"Henry, what have I _told_ you about hitting the other boys?" Mr. Selvig asked exasperatedly.

"You told me not to." Hank replied.

"Yes. I did." Mr. Selvig walked up to Hank and sighed. "So would you care to tell me why you just hit Peter?"

"Star Lord!" Star Lord shouted indignantly.

"Yes... Star Lord. Why'd you hit him?"

"He took away my ant farm from me." Hank folded his arms.

"Star Lord, we don't _steal_ things in this class."

"I just wanted to look at it." Star Lord groaned.

"Yes, but you should have asked Hank first." Mr. Selvig took the clear plastic box away from Star Lord and gave it back to Hank. "I know you're going through a tough time. How about I send you to Frank later?"

"I don't want to see Frank again."

"Tough. You're going." Mr. Selvig then turned to Hank. "And you've got yourself a lunchtime detention."

"No!" Hank cried out.

"You should have thought of that _before_ you punched Star Lord." Mr. Selvig walked over to his desk and brought out his lesson plan. "Alright, everybody sit down!" He called out. "We're gonna learn today about advanced calculus." Noticing the confused stares and blank looks through the classroom made Mr. Selvig laugh out loud. "No, kids, I'm joking. But we _are_ gonna cover long multiplication though and then after recess, we will have our show and tell, so get out your books."

* * *

That lunch time, Wade ran over to the 4th grade friends of Steve, Tony, Nick, Clint, Sam and the others.

"So Miss Preston asked me to be an usher at her wedding in the summer-I talked with my mom and she said yes and so I'm gonna be an usher, I mean, I've never been an usher before, so I don't know what to expect, but it must be awesome because I'm so totally awesome, just like _Batman_, hey did you read the latest Batman story? Did you know, Bruce, you share your name with _Batman_ since your names are both Bruce..."

"Shut up, Wade!" Everyone found themselves yelling. Wade grumbled to himself as he walked sulkily to another table.

"Hi, guys!" He said cheerily. "How are you? Danny, I haven't seen you in a month! Nor Luke, nor Misty, nor Jessica, nor Matt-but then again, Matt can't see me anyway, right? And Maya can't hear me?"

"Wade, please." A blond haired boy begged. "Don't make me punch you in the face. I'd hate to do that to someone with burns."

"Hey, Danny, why do you hang out with Luke, Matt, Maya and Jessica-they're older than you."

"I hang out with them because they're my friends, Wade."

"And Matt's blind and Maya's deaf, so how does _that_ work when you're all talking to each other? And is Luke and Jessica's crush on each other awkward at all? And with Misty's prosthetic arm, that makes you the only normal member of your gang, Danny, how does it feel?"

"That's enough please, Wade." Danny leaned out of his chair to growl at Wade.

"And I _totally_ consider myself to be completely normal, thank you, Wade." Matt said back, poking Wade with his fork.

"Ow." Wade rubbed his shoulder. "For a blind guy, you sure saw me just now."

"You mistake blindness for weakness, Wade."

"Yeah and speaking of my prosthetic arm, your best friend Nathan has a prosthetic arm _and_ eye." Misty laughed as she put a forkful of food into her mouth. "People in glass houses shouldn't throw bricks and all that."

"Yeah and sometimes Scott hangs out with you and Nathan because he's a protective older brother."

"How do you know that, Luke?"

"You forget I'm classmates with Scott Summers, don't you?" Luke asked, poking little Wade in the chest.

"You _do_ know what people have started calling you, don't you, Wade?" Jessica asked, pulling Luke's arm back. Wade shook his head. "They call you 'Dead Pool'. Because you have no survival instincts, kids around here are just wondering when you're eventually gonna kill yourself from your stupidity."

"Yeah, some of us are even taking bets." Danny chuckled. Wade frowned at him. "I mean... I don't have a bet put down for May 16th."

"Why don't you bet on when Loki Odinson will kill Phil Coulson?"

"What the hell are you on about, Wade?" Luke asked, pointing over at Loki, blowing up a potato chip packet and popping it right by Phil's ear. "He's a prank king, but he's _not_ a murderer."

"Yeah, put that down for May 16th."

"Wade, they're laughing with each other, you know, like friends do." Danny said as if it was obvious.

"I know that, Rand. Just... Just do it anyway."

"Alright." Jessica said opening her reporter's notepad. "16th May 2015, Loki Odinson murders Phil almost-Coulson." She finished taking her notes.

"Hah." Misty snorted. "Dinosaurs are more likely to come back than Loki ever murdering Phil-I mean, look at them, they're practically besties."

"Whatever." Wade rolled his eyes. "Did you see _Arrow_ last night? Man, was _that_ exciting! I mean it wasn't as exciting as_ The Flash_, but-hey do you think Pietro Maximoff could outrun_ The Flash_? He's pretty quick, isn't he? Quick-like Speedy Gonzales! Oh I _love _that cartoon, _Loony Tunes_..."

"Shut up, Wade!" Everyone yelled.

* * *

In the 4th grade classroom later on, Tony and Rhodey were the last ones to enter, thus they were really late. Hank was giving his Show and Tell presentation on his ant farm.

"How nice of you guys to finally join us." Mr. Selvig said. "Sit down boys. We will be having words later." The two friends went over to their desks sheepishly and sat down. "Continue, Hank."

"Well, there are over 12,000 species of ant in the whole world. It may actually be much more since some species haven't actually been discovered yet. And only queen ants have wings and can fly. The rest are worker ants and they can lift 20 times their own body weight. When the queen dies, an ant colony won't survive long since the queen is the only one who can reproduce."

"Are you done, Hank?" Mr. Selvig asked.

"Oh-when ants fight, they like to fight to the death. It's kind of like _The Hunger Games_, but with ants." Hank smirked. "Now I'm done."

"Alright!" Mr. Selvig sighed. "Give it up for Hank Pym and his ants!" Hank took a bow, holding his ant farm and the class began clapping half-heartedly. "Again." He muttered under his breath.

"Yeah! Nice one, Ant Man!" Darcy heckled as Hank went to sit down.

"Darcy! Please!" Mr. Selvig snapped. "Alright next up is..." He looked at a piece of paper. "Peter Quill."

"I don't want to present today, Sir." Peter said sadly.

"Alright, that's fine." Mr. Selvig picked up a pen and put a line through Peter Quill's name. "Then next up is Steven Rogers." Steve walked to the front of the class.

"My Show and Tell is on my favorite book, _The True Meaning of Smekday _and it's by Adam Rex. It's coming out as a movie called_ Home_ later this year." Steve held up the book. "It's about a girl named Tip and how she finds and befriends an alien named J Lo -like the pop star. When the aliens land, they rename earth Smekland because of their captain Smek and all the humans are forced down to Florida with rocket ships." The class stared at Steve blankly. "It's pretty funny too. J Lo likes eating dental floss, soap and urinal cakes. Tip, J Lo and Tip's cat Pig go off on adventure to find Tip's mother and save the world. I recommend it."

"Alright, Steve, are you done?" Steve nods. "Steve Rogers and another one of his bizarre books!" The bell rang and Mr. Selvig looked at his watch. "Alright. Class dismissed. We'll continue the Show and Tell after recess. Tony, James, a word please." Tony and Rhodey exchanged worried glances as the rest of the class all left the room.

"Sir, it was Rhodey's fault, I..."

"Tony. I know it couldn't all be James' fault. Now would you care to tell me the truth."

"We uh... We stayed outside during lunch time." Tony said.

"Mr. Heimdall probably saw us." Rhodey added.

"So now Principal Xavier knows about this. What a wonderful mess you two have gotten yourselves into." Mr. Selvig pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "I'm sorry boys, but you're going to have to go to the principal's office."

"What?!" They cried out.

"I want you to go there now."

"Not fair."

"What's also not fair is you boys thinking that you can turn up to class any time you want."

"But-"

"No buts, James. You've been back here for less than a day and _already _you manage to get into trouble."

"Not-"

"Fair?" Mr. Selvig asked. "Yes it is. Now you two will go to Principal Xavier's office and he will punish you accordingly."

"But Hank only got detention!"

"Hank isn't a serial troublemaker like you two. Now go!"

The two boys left the classroom sheepishly. They went down the corridors to Principal Xavier's office without saying a word. They entered the reception before this office and saw Mary Storm sitting at her desk.

"Anthony Stark and James Rhodes. Why am I not surprised?" She said, looking up from her paperwork.

"Hey, Mrs. Storm." The boys muttered sheepishly.

"Shall I assume that Mr. Selvig sent you here because you need to be punished?" She looked at the boys' awkward movements. "Indeed I shall. Wait there." She stood up from her desk and knocked on the door to Principal Xavier's office before opening it.

"Mary?"

"Yeah, uh... James Rhodes and Anthony Stark..."

"What have they done _this_ time?"

"Shall I send them in, Charles?"

"Yes." Mary gestured to the boys with a nod of her head. They both walked into the office and Mary shut the door behind them.

"Anthony Edward Stark and James Rupert Rhodes. Unfortunately, this isn't our _first _meeting." Principal Xavier put his hands folded, on his desk as the boys sat down in the chairs on the other side of the desk.

"No, Sir." Tony said, avoiding eye contact.

"What did you do this time-actually, don't tell me, let's see if I can guess, shall we?" The boys squirmed uncomfortably in their chairs. "You stayed outside long after lunch break had ended, hiding out where your friend Clint Barton practices his archery. Oh and you were there for a full hour and 10 minutes. Am I anywhere close to the mark?" The boys said nothing. "Heimdall watches all, boys. You should know that. I'm holding you here for the rest of the day-which only has an hour and 30 minutes-and I will be calling your parents."

"Is that it?" Rhodey asked.

"Yes." Principal Xavier answered. "You will probably be punished enough at home, so there will be no detention." The boys sighed in relief. "However..." He began. "You will each have 200 lines. 'I will not skip class'. Begin." He pushed a piece of paper and a pen each towards the two boys. "Go on."

The two boys picked up the pens and began writing the sentence on the paper.

* * *

**A/N: So The True Meaning of Smekday is a friend of mine's favorite book. I read it and enjoyed it, so I made it Steve's favorite book and had him summarize the plot. If you haven't read it, I _strongly_ suggest that you do. It is brilliant and there's just so much subtext in there for a children's book. **

**I introduced more characters in this chapter. A _lot_ more. If you're having trouble keeping track of the characters, let me know. I've had to create a database myself to keep track of them all.**

**Sorry it's late, but a family member died and it's been really quite stressful.**

**I don't own Marvel, the Walt Disney Company do. I also don't own The True Meaning of Smekday.**


	6. Valentine's Day Part I

The next day was Valentines Day.

Peter made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he saw his aunt and uncle kissing.

"Gross!" He exclaimed.

"When you find yourself a girlfriend, Peter, this won't seem gross to you then."

"I doubt _that_, Aunt May." Peter put two slices of bread into the toaster.

"So are you doing anything special for Valentine's Day then?" May asked.

"No. I'm just going out to the movies with Harry." Peter shrugged.

"Just as long as you don't see the _50 Shades of Grey_ movie later." May pushed a bowl towards Peter. "Your uncle and I are saving _that_ one for later." She and Ben shared a knowing glance.

"Smart choice." Ben pulled May in for a kiss and Peter looked at his aunt and uncle with disgust as he poured cereal into the bowl.

* * *

Clint entered the front room, where his mother was shouting down the telephone and waving around a bouquet of flowers. His brother, Barney, was sitting in the corner of the room, observing and eating a bowl of cereal. Though Clint couldn't hear what was being said, he knew it had something to do with his father.

* * *

"Morning, Steve." Sarah Rogers said. She was sitting at the table in the kitchenette, reading a newspaper and eating toast.

"How did you know it was me?" Steve asked.

"You and I are the only ones who live here." Sarah put down the paper and smiled at her only son. "So." She began. "Any plans for Valentine's day? A special girl?"

"No." Steve sat down at the table, opposite his mother. "I'm just gonna go meet my friends."

"Which ones?"

"Uh... Thor and Loki, Clint, Phil, Natasha, Nick and maybe Maria. Tony's grounded."

"Is he now?" Sarah asked.

"Mhm." Steve nodded. "He and Rhodey skipped class and had to go to Principal Xavier."

"So where's Bucky gone then?"

"Oh he's visiting his grandmother." Steve simply shrugged.

* * *

Loki and Thor were sitting in their front room with all the lights dimmed. Their parents were not yet awake.

"Do you think Jane will be appreciative of this card, Brother?" Thor handed a card to Loki.

"It is a bit... Pink? And glittery?" Loki looked questioningly at it. It read 'Be My Valentine' in white writing over a pale pink background and there was a glittery pink heart in the center. Loki opened the card and read the message within. He looked up and shook his head at his brother. "Thor, you do not gain a lady's affection by messages reading '_you are in my heart this day and forever_', Thor..." He trailed off.

"Well how do you gain a lady's affection, then?" Thor asked.

"With a grand gesture and a box of chocolate." Loki gave the card back to Thor. "Ladies love chocolate."

"Loki is correct." Their sister added as she came from the kitchen. "I have received many boxes of chocolate from those in my class in an attempt to gain my affection."

"But where do I get a box of chocolate from this Valentine's Day, Angela?" Thor asked.

"I had one this morning. You can have it." Thor smiled. "For a price." Angela smirked at her little brother.

* * *

"Philip!" A woman called out. Julie Coulson. "Get up, please! It's 10am!"

"I don't wanna!" Phil shouted back.

"You've got Valentine's cards!"

"Yeah, from you, Dad, Hannah and Rachel."

"Get up anyway, Phil!" Phil huffed and slid out of bed.

* * *

Nick walked into the kitchen fully dressed, but without shoes.

"Where are _you_ going?"

"Out." Was Nick's one word response to his brother.

"With who?"

"My friends."

"Which friends?"

"Clint, Phil, Natasha, Steve, Maria and the Odinsons." Nick picked up a _Pop Tart_ and put it in the toaster.

"I sent some chocolate to the Odinsons' sister today."

"Did you, Mikel?"

"I did."

"She's gonna reject you, you know." Nick scoffed. "Aldrif 'Angela' Odinsdottir isn't exactly good with emotions."

"Yeah, but she's cute."

"Maybe it's because I've only got one eye, but I'm not seeing it." Nick shook his head as he retrieved his Pop Tart.

"You will when you turn 12, brother."

"I'm happy being 10, thank you." Nick took a bite from his_ Pop Tart_ and left the kitchen. Mikel followed.

* * *

"Has anyone seen my hairbrush?!" Natasha yelled out. "Evengy!" She screamed, knowing her long haired brother might have taken it.

"Don't look at me!" Evengy threw his hands in the air. "I didn't take it."

"I don't believe you." Natasha narrowed her eyes.

"Anastasia?" Natasha's other brother Ilya suggested.

"Anastasia has her own pretty pink hairbrush-mine's the black one with the spider sticker on it." Natasha growled.

"We know what it looks like." Evengy rolled his eyes.

"Have you got a boyfriend?" Ilya asked.

"No!" Natasha said defensively. "I'm going to hang out with my friends."

"Keep telling yourself that, Natalia." Evengy smirked.

"It's true!" Natasha shouted.

* * *

Maria walked into the front room to see her younger brother watching TV. There was a note on the table from her father.

'Maria, I will be gone all day as I've been called into work. Look after your little brother. Dad'

Maria sighed. Despite being only 3 years older than her brother, she was already his mother figure at 9 years old. The one time in ages she decides to go out with her friends and she's stuck babysitting. Was this situation even legal? Mrs. Smith just got divorced and it's Valentine's Day so she might be free...

"Hey, Ethan?" Maria asked.

"Yeah?"

"You like Carla Smith next door right?" Ethan nodded. "Well how about you going to stay with her for today if she's not busy?"

"Alright." Ethan smiled as he turned off the TV.

* * *

"Come on, James." Bucky's mother Winifred said, grabbing his flesh arm. "There's nothing imposing about your grandmother."

"I never said there was." Bucky blew his bangs from his face.

"Rebecca has no problem with this."

"Becky's 6. I'm 10."

"James. Please."

"No."

"Stay out here then, James. If you get kidnapped, don't come crying to me or your father." Winifred let go of Bucky's arm.

"I don't think I'd be able to if I was kidnapped anyway, Mom."

"Leave him out here, Winifred." Bucky's grandmother said. "Give him a soccer ball or something."

"No, Mom!" Winifred shook her head in disgust. "He needs to be punished."

"He's just a child. And one who's gone through hard times recently." Bucky's grandmother looked at him sadly. "Don't you remember what it was like seeing him in the hospital? In the intensive care unit, unconscious and unresponsive and on life support?" Winifred looked down sadly. "He's got brain damage, Winifred. He lost his arm. You said yourself he has good days and bad days. He's probably having a bad day and you can't punish him for that."

"I could never forget that." Winifred whispered. "Nobody should have to see their child like that." She looked sadly at Bucky who had his hands in his coat pockets, kicking snow piles.

"You need to be more gentle with him." Bucky's grandmother said, putting an arm around her daughter. "James!" Bucky turned to look. "We're inside when you decide you want to be with us." Bucky nodded and went back to kicking the snow. "That's all you have to do." She said and the two of them went inside, leaving Bucky out in the snow.

* * *

**A/N: I don't own the Avengers, SHIELD, X Men or any other character, except Natasha's siblings, Maria's brother, Bucky's grandmother and Coulson's adoptive siblings, who are my OCs. Everyone else is owned by Marvel. And no, Uncle Ben's not dead. **_**Yet**_**...**


	7. Valentine's Day Part II

Angela pushed Thor out of the front door with his card and a box of chocolates.

"Go win her heart, little brother."

Thor walked uncertainly to the house across the street.

"Do you _really_ think Thor will win her heart?" Loki, who was by her side, asked.

"I am not sure, Loki." Angela frowned.

"Look, she's answering the door." Loki pointed to the house. "They are talking."

"Indeed." Angela says in thought.

"I am not aware of what Thor sees in Jane Foster." Loki shrugged. "I prefer..."

"Loki, be quiet." Angela hissed quietly. "She has accepted the chocolate."

"So she has." Loki noted. Jane kissed Thor on his cheek and went back inside. Thor walked back to his house with a goofy smile on his face.

"I see that went well, Thor." Angela smiled.

"Indeed, Sister." Thor exhaled. "It went very well."

"She kissed you, Brother."

"Yes..." Thor held his hand over where Jane had kissed his cheek. "I was not expecting that myself."

"So what's happening then?" Loki asked.

"We are meeting tomorrow to see a film."

"Not _50 Shades of Grey_?" Loki raised an eyebrow.

"Loki, I would not watch _50 Shades of Grey_ if I _was_ Grey." Thor shook his head and everyone chuckled.

* * *

Over at his grandmother's house, Bucky was absentmindedly building a snowman. A girl came up to his snowman and observed him for a few moments.

"What are you building?" She asked. Bucky looked at her, startled.

"A snowman?" He said questioningly.

"_Do you wanna build a snowman_?" She asked in sing song.

"I'm building one." Bucky said.

"With me, I mean." The girl chuckled.

"Uh... Sure?" Bucky shrugged. "But I don't know your name."

"I know yours." The girl said. "It's James Barnes, but everyone calls you Bucky."

"How-"

"I go to Marvel Elementary as well." The girl smiled. "I'm in 2nd Grade, but I'm 9."

"Why-?"

"I... I don't wanna talk about it." The girl said quickly. Bucky took his metal arm from the snowman. The girl stared at it.

"What...?"

"I don't wanna talk about it either." Bucky kicked the snowman. A loud noise caused Bucky to scream and cover his ears. "Nein!" He shouted. "Ich bin nicht glücklich! Ich bin nicht glücklich!"

"Bucky?" The girl asked.

"Nein!"

"Bucky, it's okay." The girl rubbed Bucky's back soothingly. "It was just a car backfiring." Bucky slowly lowered his arms. "Is that how you lost your arm..."

"Ich nicht..." Bucky paused. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Well uh... I should probably say my name's Daisy, but everyone just calls me Skye."

"Why-"

"It goes under 'I don't wanna talk about it', so..."

"Skye?"

"Yeah. Just call me Skye."

* * *

"Mom?" Steve asked.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Are you going to see that Mommy and Daddy movie later?"

"_50 Shades_..." Sarah began.

"_Of Grey_, yeah." Steve finished and nodded.

"No, Steve. I'm not. I'm babysitting the Coulson kids... While _their_ parents go to see it." Sarah explained.

"Are you going to see it at all?"

"I might." Steve simply nodded.

"Okay." Steve finished his toast and stood up. "I'm gonna go pick up Phil."

"Alright." Sarah stood up from the table and walked to the door with Steve, who was too small to reach the latch by himself. "Have you got your inhaler?"

"Yes, Mom." Steve nodded.

"And a spare?" Steve nodded again. "Have you taken your heart medication? Your anti-seizure meds? Your asthma meds?"

"Yes, Mom." Steve sighed.

"What about your kidney meds? Your iron tablets? Your insulin? A small candy..."

"YES, Mom!" Steve said exasperatedly.

"Did you put them in your backpack?" Sarah gasped. "Did you take your muscle relaxants? In case your muscles spasm up again..."

"I'm fine, Mom." Steve rolled his eyes. Just because he was born almost 4 months premature and was a sickly child compared to everyone else, didn't mean he had to be babied.

"Alright, Steve." Sarah sighed. "I just care, Sweetie." She wrapped her arms around her son and Steve held her back.

"I know, Mom." Sarah let go of Steve and opened the door for him.

"Go get Phil." Sarah smiled bittersweetly after her only child as he walked the hallway to Phil's apartment.

* * *

"Nice of you to join the living." Julie Coulson said to a fully dressed, but still half asleep looking Phil. Everyone was sitting around the kitchen table, eating breakfast.

"I'm going with my friends today. It's Saturday."

"It's also Valentine's day!" Robert Coulson kissed Julie and Phil, Hannah and Rachel all cringed.

"Looking forward to that sexy movie later." Julie said.

"I don't wanna know." Hannah picked up her cereal bowl and left the kitchen table. "Disgusting."

"You won't think so in a few years, Missy!" Robert shouted after her.

"Pretty sure I will." She muttered.

"You're going to see that _50 Shades_ that everyone's parents are going to?" Phil asked.

"You're not supposed to know about it." Robert said.

"But there's billboards for it everywhere, Dad." Phil shrugged.

"You don't see it until you're married."

"I'm not going to get married." Phil said. "International super spies don't get married."

"You still think that, huh?" Robert smiled and tousled Phil's hair.

"I am one already!" Phil protested.

"Are you?" Julie asked.

"Yeah! Hydra's taken over my school! _Someone_ has to protect America!"

"And Hydra is...?"

"An evil supervillain organization. Like the _Legion of Doom_."

"It's true, Mom and Dad!" Rachel shouted. "They even got a logo!"

"Why haven't I heard about this?" Julie asked.

"What does the logo look like?"

"A squid!" The two kids shouted. Hannah walked into the kitchenette.

"Phil, Captain America's here."

"Captain...?" He trailed off. "Steve! Dad, ask Steve about it!"

"Ask Steve about what?" Hannah asked.

"Hydra!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty certain Mr Klaw is working for them." Hannah shrugged.

"The only thing I'm interested in now is why you call your friend 'Captain America'."

"Because it's better than America Man."

"Really?"

"Nah. It's all to do with his 4th of July birthday and the fact that he supports the _New England Patriots_, loves Apple Pie and goes to the Boy Scouts."

"You go to the Boy Scouts too, Phil." Julie said.

"I do. But Steve's just like a walking stereotype."

"Look at you, using big words." Robert chuckled.

"Well, I _am_ 9..."

"You better go meet your friend." Julie said. "And don't forget Ms. Rogers is babysitting you later."

"Alright, bye Mom. Bye, Dad." Phil walked into the front room to see Steve.

"Let's go pick up Clint."

"Good idea." Phil nodded. "Nick's meeting us outside our apartment building soon."

* * *

"Junior, are you _sure_ you're okay?" Nick Fury Sr asked.

"Dad, I already _told_ you, I'm not meeting a girl-well Maria's a girl, but I'm not meeting her alone." Nick Fury Jr groaned.

"Just doing my fatherly duty."

"Why don't you do that with Mikel?"

"I do."

"Then why don't you know he's trying to woo Aldrif Odinsdottir?!" Nick Jr spat out the name. Nick Sr recoiled in horror.

"He's doing WHAT?!" Nick Sr shouted angrily.

"He sent Aldrif Odinsdottir a box of chocolate this morning."

* * *

"So who was it who actually sent you the chocolate, Sister?" Loki asked.

"I had two people send me chocolate."

"Who sent you the box you gave Thor to give to Jane?"

"Black Bolt." Angela sighed. "I received another box from Mikel Fury. I like him, he's cute."

"Mikel?" Loki asked.

"Yeah." Angela nodded.

"So... Black Bolt?" Loki looked at Angela questioningly.

"Blackagar Boltagon. But, everyone calls him Black Bolt."

"Interesting." Loki nodded. "Where does this 'Black Bolt' hail from?"

"A place he calls Attilan?" Angela shrugged. "I don't know. Black Bolt is a man of few words."

"A man? I thought he was 12."

"You thought wrong, Loki. He is 11."

* * *

"Hey Mrs. Barton." Phil smiled at the woman in the doorway. "Is Clint home?"

"Yeah, one second." Clint's mother stepped away from the door.

"Who do we need after Clint?" Steve asked.

"Uh... Maria." Phil nodded.

"Yeah. Oh and the Odinson twins."

"That's right. The Odinsons."

Clint's mother reemerged at the doorway with Clint and signed to him. Clint nodded and he and his mother hugged.

"Let's go." Clint said to Phil and Steve and they all walked down the hall together.

* * *

"Are you _sure_ you don't have a date, Natalia?" Evengy asked. "You look _way_ too nice to just be going out with your friends."

"Well I am." Natasha said as she fixed a flower barrette into her hair. She and her older brother were standing in front of a mirror. "So shut up."

"How do I know that you're not gonna kiss that deaf kid you like so much?"

"Clint? Ha! You wish."

"Or that one eyed pirate you hang out with so often."

"Don't call Nick a pirate, he's already sensitive to the fact that..."

"Then there's that weedy little boy, who has just about every illness except Ebola."

"Steve was born preterm actually..."

"And... That boy who lost his arm in an explosion and went into a coma."

"I'll have you know, Bucky is a _very_ nice guy..."

"The magician?"

"Nothing's going on between me and Stephen."

"Ant Man?"

"So you've heard about Hank Pym's ant obsession then?"

"Yep."

"Well I'm pretty sure he's got a thing for Jan anyway." Natasha turned away from the mirror. "How do I look?"

"Like I'm pretty sure you're going on a date."

* * *

"I appreciate you looking after my younger brother, Ms. Smith." Maria smiled at her neighbor.

"It's my pleasure, Maria." Carla Smith said. "I don't think it's fair how your father can just leave you alone without calling a sitter."

"I know, Ms. Smith." Maria sighed. "But he works a lot."

"I'll be seeing you later?"

"Probably." Maria looked at the ground.

Carla put her hand on Maria's shoulder. "Then I'll see you later."

"Bye, Ms. Smith." Maria walked away from Carla Smith's house and walked further up the street to Nick's house. Nick was waiting for her outside the building already.

"You ready to go?"

"Only if you are." The two kids shared a laugh and began the walk to Clint, Phil and Steve's apartment building.

* * *

**A/N: Valentine's Day part 2. There are only 2 more parts left.**

**Natasha's siblings and parents call her Natalia, everyone else calls her Natasha.**

**So a mention of Black Bolt and the (former) home of the Inhumans. What does this mean (probably nothing)? Stay tuned...**

**I don't own any of the characters except for Phil's foster sisters and Natasha's family.**


	8. Trapped in the Closet

"Loki!" Janet Van Dyne shouted out. "Let us out!"

"No!" Loki shouted on the other side of the door. "Enjoy each other's company!" Janet could hear Loki's laugh getting further away. She growled.

Loki had tricked her, Sam and Bucky into the janitor's supply closet during afternoon recess for one of his pranks. It wasn't malicious, but it _was _annoying. Especially for her being the only girl trapped with two boys.

"Jan, he'll come back." Bucky said, folding his arms. "I mean, he has to, right? He can't keep us here overnight."

"The janitors will find us, anyway." Sam shrugged.

"No. The janitors are at home." Janet shook her head. "They go home in the afternoon. Come in early in the morning."

"Mr. Heimdall then."

"Probably. If he saw Loki trick us in here, that is."

"So what?" Sam asked.

"So we wait." Bucky sighed and sat on a box full of soap bars.

The kids waited and waited but it was only until last bell that they realized the stark truth.

"Guys, I can't see us getting out of this closet today." Janet sighed.

"So we're locked in here all night?" Sam asked.

"Looks that way, Sam." Janet paced the mid-sized supply closet. "Bucky, are you okay?"

"Mom's gonna be so worried." Bucky whispered.

"She's been so protective of him since his accident." Janet explained.

"Is that when he lost his arm?"

"He had severe brain damage too."

"What happened?" Sam asked, noticing Bucky sitting on a box, rocking back and forth, muttering to himself in German.

"An explosion." Janet breathed. Sam looked down, sadly.

"Bucky, I didn't know." Sam put his hand on Bucky's flesh shoulder.

"I didn't want you to." Bucky said. "I just wanted you to see me as Bucky your classmate and Bucky your friend. I didn't want you to see me as Bucky the brain damaged kid who needs to be pitied."

"I would never pity you."

"You're pitying me right now." Bucky countered. "I recognize that look. And it's pity." Bucky sighed.

"So when did it happen? What happened?"

"Last year-well, late 2013." Bucky said. "You haven't heard me talking about my father."

"No." Sam shook his head.

"My father's dead. He died when I lost my arm."

* * *

The Barnes family are in a hotel in Germany. Bucky's left arm is flesh and blood.

"James, are you ready?" Winifred Barnes asked.

"Yeah, just give me a minute!" Bucky ran into the hotel suite's bedroom grabbed his teddy bear with his left arm.

"I haven't got all day!" Winifred shouted. "We're going back to the States today! You want to see Steve again, don't you?"

"Yeah, Mom! I'm coming!" Bucky came out of the bedroom with his backpack on and clutching his teddy bear.

"You'd never forget Sebastan, would you?" Bucky's father pointed to Bucky's teddy bear.

"No way." Bucky shook his head. "Sebastian is my best friend, along with Steve."

"Alright, let's go home so you can see your best friend and your little sister." Winifred said. "And George, stop encouraging him with that teddy bear."

"He's only 8 years old, Winnie. Let him be a kid." George chuckled as they left the hotel room.

As Bucky's parents checked out in the reception, Bucky played Angry Birds on his father's iPhone.

"Come on, James." George took his son's hand and they walked to the rental car. "Winnie, you coming?"

"Yeah, there's just something I need to do first." Winifred replied. "I left the passports in the safe box at the front desk."

"Do you want us to wait?"

"Nah, Go on without me. I'll call a cab."

* * *

"The last thing I remember is buckling up." Bucky put his head in his hands. "I was in a coma until just before Christmas."

"When did it happen?"

"Halloween."

"You were stuck in Germany all that time?"

"No." Bucky shook his head. "I was moved to the States sometime in mid-November."

"So how did you lose your arm?"

"The metal of the car door ripped through my arm at the shoulder when the car exploded." Bucky said quietly.

"Wow." Sam was speechless.

"When I got back to the States, Phil's father and Jan's mother-who are children's doctors-and Steve's mother-a nurse-looked after me."

"Every time my mother came home during that time, she would break down and cry." Janet said. "I begged to see Bucky. I wish I hadn't."

"Why?"

"Have you ever seen anyone when they've been in a coma before?" Sam shook his head. "I couldn't even see Bucky. It was really upsetting."

"Apparently, when I woke up, I spoke just German."

"You had just come from there."

"As I got more aware, I spoke more English." Bucky looked up at Sam. "I found out about last Valentine's Day that my father had been killed. And about Easter, how bad I was hurt."

"How..."

"Several broken bones, internal bleeding and a bad head injury. Bad enough to give me brain damage and put me in a coma."

"Oh, Bucky..." Sam felt his stomach knot up. He thought he'd had it hard with his father being in the army and worrying about an event that may never happen, but Bucky'd had it way worse-he'd gone through and survived the unthinkable.

"Bucky's mother then went to my dad, Hank's dad and Tony's dad to see if anything could be some about his arm-because they'd already built arms for Misty and Nathan." Janet sat down on a box opposite Bucky. "They came back with that." She pointed at Bucky's metal arm.

"Wow."

"His mother-who didn't want to be coddling him-has been coddling him ever since."

The three kids sat in silence for a while before Bucky spoke up again.

"What time is it?"

Janet looked down at her watch. "It's half 6."

"What do we do then?" Sam asked.

"How about we sing a song?" Janet suggested.

"Alright, Jan. _You_ start."

"_This land is your land, this land is my land_

_From California to the New York islands_

_From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters_

_This land was made for you and me_"

"No, no, no." Sam shook his head. "Woody Guthrie? Come on you can do better than that."

"Oh yeah? You try it then." Janet folded her arms.

"_It's a small world af_-"

"No!" Janet and Bucky shouted together.

"N-no no! Anything but that!" Bucky whined.

"Fine.

_Michael row the boat ashore, hallelujah_

_Michael row the boat ashore, hallelujah_

_Sister help to trim the sails, hallelujah_..."

"No. Too depressing."

"Well we _have_ just talked about depressing stuff."

"Which is _exactly_ why we need an upbeat song." Janet shrugged. "Bucky. Do you want a go?"

"_Look for the bare necessities_

_The simple bare necessities_

_Forget about your worries and your strife_..." Bucky trailed off

"_I mean the bear necessities_

_Old mother nature's recipes_

_That bring the bare necessities of life_" Janet sang happily.

* * *

The kids spent the rest of the night singing Disney songs and over exaggeratedly performing the actions. The next morning, the kids were found by the janitor and chose not to get Loki into trouble. But they went home with permission from the principal.

* * *

**A/N: I wanted something to break up the Valentine's Day story. This takes place 10 days later, on February the 24th. **

**Bucky's teddy bear IS named after Sebastian Stan. **

**I don't own Loki, Winter Soldier, Falcon or Wasp. Also, Bare Necessities was written by Terry Gilkyson and It's A Small World was written by Robert and Richard Sherman and they belong to Disney and This Land is Your Land was written by Woody Guthrie. **


	9. Valentine's Day Part III

"So what should we name our snowman?" Skye asked.

"I don't know." Bucky put his hat on the snowman.

"He kind of looks like an army cadet now!" Skye laughed.

"Snowman Soldier!" Bucky snorted.

"Winter Soldier is better." Skye shrugged.

"Winter Soldier..."

"James!" Bucky's grandmother called out from her front door. Bucky ran to her.

"Hi, Grandma." Bucky wrapped his arms around is grandmother. She took his hands in hers and looked down sadly at his prosthetic.

"Who's your friend, James?"

"That's Skye." He beckoned over for Skye to come over.

"Hello, Skye."

"Hello Mrs. Barnes."

"Oh, I'm not Mrs. Barnes." Bucky's grandmother corrected. "I'm Mrs. Buchanan." Skye nodded. "Tell me, what do you think about the Furys?"

"I think it's weird how Nick Fury and Nick Fury Jr both have eyepatches." Skye replied.

"Do you think they're nice people?"

"Yeah. They're really great!"

"Coach Fury is your neighbor?" Bucky asked his grandmother.

"Oh yes." She nodded. "Mikel and Nick Jr always stop to say hello. I see them often when they go to school or I go to work."

"Can I come in, Grandma?" Bucky asked. "I'm cold out here."

"Yes, you can James." Bucky's grandmother said, smiling softly. "Would Skye like to come in as well?" Skye gave a small nod. "Come in then kids and I'll fix you up some nice hot cocoa."

"Extra marshmallows?" Bucky asked hopefully.

"Extra marshmallows." Bucky's grandmother smiled as she moved aside to let the kids inside her house.

* * *

Nick Fury Sr was pacing angrily around his living room, while Mikel sat on the couch, looking confused.

"You sent chocolates to Odin's daughter Aldrif, didn't you?" He said after a while.

"Uh yeah." Mikel nodded. "Did I do something wrong?"

"You sent chocolate to Aldrif Odinsdottir!" Nick Sr repeated, shouting. "You're too young to get involved with girls!"

"Dad, I don't plan on having sex with her just yet, I mean, I _know_ I'm 12." Mikel sighed. "Besides, I'm sure she has a thing for that Black Bolt guy..."

"Nick, leave the boy alone." A dark skinned woman said as she entered the room. Nick Jr's mother and Mikel's stepmother.

"Thanks, Nia." Mikel smiled.

"Nick, he said he doesn't want sex. Why aren't you happy with that?"

"Because I know boys and I know girls and they always have ulterior motives." Nick Sr replied, folding his arms. "As a teacher, I've seen it all."

"Nick, you're a gym coach." Nia rolled her eyes.

"I _teach_ gym." He shrugged. Mikel sat on the couch, confused by his parents' interactions.

"Come on, Nick." Nia grabbed his shoulders and spoke slightly seductively. "I want you all nice and relaxed for that movie later..." Nick Sr giggled softly.

"Alright, but only because I love you." Nick Sr and Nia kissed. A look of disgust found it's way onto Mikel's face.

"Gross." Mikel said.

"Oh, Mikel, you're excused." Nick Sr said with a smile on his face, briefly breaking away from the kiss. Mikel jumped off the couch and ran out of the room as quickly as his legs would allow.

* * *

"So what movie are we watching then, guys?" Steve asked. He was standing in a movie theater lobby with his friends Natasha, Maria, Phil, Loki, Thor, Nick and Clint, who was fiddling with a pair of hearing aids. The kids looked at each other and grinned.

"_SpongeBob SquarePants_!" Phil, Clint and Thor yelled loudly.

"Brother, please. Stop embarrassing yourself."

"It's not Thor's fault if you don't know how to have a good time, Loki." Maria said.

"I know perfectly well how to have a good time and it certainly does _not_ involve watching a yellow, high pitched, giggling idiot like my brother would have me believe."

"So... You _don't_ like _SpongeBob_?" Nick asked with a puzzled look on his face.

"I have never watched _SpongeBob_." Loki replied.

"Never watched..." Maria grunted in disbelief.

"That's it, Loki." Phil said.

"Yeah. We're taking you to see _SpongeBob_." Steve added. "No ifs, ands or buts about it."

"Butts." Thor giggled.

"Shut up, Thor." Loki growled as Maria walked over to the ticket counter.

"I can't believe Loki has never seen _SpongeBob SquarePants_." Clint shook his head.

"Tell me about it." Phil scoffed. "That's just shocking. _SpongeBob_ is a big part of childhood that he's missing out on."

"Not for long." Clint smirked.

"I got us all tickets!" Maria said in sing-song.

"Cool!" Phil shouted. "I can't wait!"

"You going to see the _SpongeBob_ movie too?" Peter Parker asked, walking up to the group.

"Hi, Peter! Hi, Harry!" Clint waved.

"Well it's sure as hell not _50 Shades of_ Blergh!" Maria replied.

"Let me guess, you're gonna watch _SpongeBob_, too?" Wade Wilson asked happily. "I have been looking forward to this _SpongeBob_ movie for ages, I mean, I wasn't even born when the first movie was out, but I liked it when Bob showed it to me, oh by the way, _this_ is my friend, Bob." Wade pointed at the brown haired boy standing next to him.

"Hey." Bob waved.

"He's my best friend and neighbor. But my best friend is also Nate here and Weasel, who's buying tickets at the counter there."

"Weasel?" Maria and Nick exchanged glances.

"Yeah." Nathan nodded. "His name's Jack, but Wade figured he needed to have a nickname for some reason."

"Right." Phil nodded. "Well, I'm Phil and this is my best friend, Clint-he's deaf."

"I'm Maria." She said.

"Natalia Romanova, but call my by my English name, Natasha Romanoff." Natasha explained.

"My name is Thor Odinson and this is my twin brother Loki!" Thor announced loudly.

"Nick Fury Jr. But just call me Nick."

"Steve." He said with a soft nod.

"I'm Peter."

"And I'm Harry."

"Cool." Bob nodded. "Well, I'm Bob. I've known Wade and Nate for years. So how do _you_ know Wade and Nate?"

"We go to the same school." Nick said.

"Yeah, Marvel Elementary."

"That's cool." Bob said with a smile. "Me and Jack, we go to Stan Lee Elementary."

"Yeah, I know someone who used to go there." Maria said. "They go to Marvel Elementary now."

"Is it true you have _Inhumans_ there?" Phil asked. Bob nodded. "That is _so_ cool!"

"What are Inhumans?" Peter asked.

"Humans with super powers." A boy said. He had short and straight brown hair and thick glasses. "You're talking to Wade, so I'll assume he's told you my name."

"Weasel?" Steve asked. The boy nodded.

"Jack, yeah, but they call me Weasel."

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Why not?" Wade laughed.

"Humans with super powers." Loki repeated. "That is impossible."

"No, it isn't." Bob said. "There was a girl in our school and she could make earthquakes."

"Daisy Johnson!" Bob and Weasel said in unison.

"She was taken away from her parents and lives with a foster family now."

"Wow. She sounds really cool." Steve smiled.

"If she even _exists_, Steve." Loki muttered.

"Yeah, but imagine being able to make earthquakes!" Maria laughed. "That would be so awesome!"

"Right, I think we better go to the theater." Nick said anxiously, looking at his watch.

"Yeah, you're right, Nick." Peter said. "We don't wanna get caught up in the _50 Shades of_ Eew crowd."

"My parents are going to see that later." Nick said.

"So are mine." Phil groaned.

"And ours." Thor hung his head.

"My aunt and uncle, too." Peter shook his head as if he were trying to shake the thought out of his mind.

"My parents are as well." Wade stuck out his tongue.

"Mine too." Bob sighed.

"My mom's going tomorrow." Steve grunted.

"I have five siblings. My parents couldn't take time off from looking after us all."

"Nate, you lucky bastard." Wade screwed his face up in mock anger.

"Yeah well they're going anyway. The guy next door is watching us all."

"Sorry to hear that." Maria muttered. "It's times like this I'm thankful I just have a dad." She rolled her eyes.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry it's late, I've just had severe Internet issues, so recently switched ISP providers.**

**The first introduction to Weasel and Hydra Bob! Yay! And Harry Osborn! Double yay!**

**I headcanon that Bucky's middle name is Buchanan because it was his mother's maiden name. It's common practice where I'm from. My mother's middle name is her mother's maiden name and my middle name is my aunt's name, but my parents aren't married. If it's the same, then his grandmother would almost certainly be Mrs Buchanan.**

**To clarify, Skye/Daisy is being fostered by Nick Fury Sr. She is closer to her AOS counterpart, with only that she was taken in by Nick Sr in common with the comics since I'm unclear (as is she) about her AOS background. All the Avengers, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and their villains follow their MCU counterparts with the exception of Clint, as he has no real characterization within the MCU. Hell, even Absorbing Man's had more screen time in the MCU than Hawkeye at this point and Hawkeye's a major Avenger! So Clint will be following Matt Fraction's Hawkeye, hopefully just until AOU comes out. Nick Jr is unaware that Skye is Daisy Johnson, since he knows her as only Skye. **

**Next chapter will be set on March 23rd-and it will be a flashback story-before coming back for the final part of the Valentines Day story. Internet points if you guess who it will be centered on-one of the kids in the chapter but Bucky's out since he's just been done.**

**I don't own any Marvel characters or SpongeBob SquarePants. I only own Bucky's grandmother.**


	10. Kid Cable and Kid Deadpool

"Hey, Danny!" Wade called out. "It's the talent show tonight, what are you doing?"

"I was thinking my karate. What are _you_ doing?"

"Nothing." Wade shrugged. "I don't have a special talent. Unless messing things up is a talent."

"It's not. Sorry." Danny shook his head. "I know Clint's doing something with darts and Stephen Strange is doing some magic."

"Anyone else taking part?"

"Yeah, uh... Bucky's tap dancing, Alison's singing, Remy's doing his card tricks, I don't know what Phil's doing but he's doing something and Betsy is doing one of those psychic mind reading things like on TV."

"Cool. I like Betsy. She's cool, like her brother. And their upper class English accents are cool too."

"Yeah, I guess. Where are you going?"

"To meet up with Nate. What about you?"

"Seeing Luke."

"I'll see you in class then, Danny."

"It was nice having a normal conversation with you, Wade." Danny nodded. "Those don't happen often." Wade skipped off while Danny walked down the hallway and turned the corner.

"Danny?" Luke asked, following after his friend.

"I'm fine, Luke." Danny said. "But I just had the strangest conversation with Wade Wilson."

"What did he say _this_ time?" Luke rolled his eyes.

"Nothing out of the ordinary. _That's_ why it was so strange."

"Hmm." Luke grunted thoughtfully. "Maybe they have him on some new ADHD drug or something."

"Hey, Danny. Hey, Luke." A blond boy said as he passed them in the hallway.

"Hey, Nathan." Danny and Luke said in unison.

"You'd think Scott would be protective of _him_, rather than Alex." Luke shook his head.

"Or Rachel." Danny added.

"Yeah, I know Rachel and Alex are younger and Hope's in kindergarten, but Nathan..." Luke sighed and shook his head. "He's been through just as much as Bucky Barnes."

"What about Bucky?"

"Is it to do with his arm? I tried asking him, but he won't tell me."

"It was blown off in a car accident when he was on vacation ." Luke grimaced.

"Wow."

"Suffered a _lot_ of brain damage, too."

"I feel really bad for him now." Danny said in concern.

"He was in a coma and his arm had to be taken off at the shoulder and have skin grafts on his chest."

"You talking about my brother?" A boy with glasses asked, approaching the two friends.

"I'm gonna go... Get to class." Danny grabbed the straps of his backpack and walked away cautiously.

"To answer your question, no, Scott. We weren't talking about your brother."

"Then you were talking about the Barnes kid."

"Yep."

"That poor kid." Scott shook his head, sadly. "He's been through too much. I mean, I got brain damage too, but mine just gives me double vision-easily corrected by my special glasses."

"Yeah. Poor Bucky's had to relearn everything."

"I heard he was violent after he woke from the coma."

"Wasn't Nathan?" Luke asked.

"Yeah. For a while. Then he just insisted we called him 'Cable'."

"Brain damage." Luke shrugged.

"Nathan wasn't brain damaged. Just confused from the drugs that put him in a coma." Scott explained. "And upset when he found out his left arm, shoulder and eye were missing. He said he didn't feel like Nathan Summers any more so he wanted to be called a different name."

"Cable." Scott nodded.

"The cables keeping him alive were the first things he saw after waking up. In a way, Nate never _did_ recover from what made him sick."

"Meningitis." Luke muttered. Scott gave a small nod.

"Thank god for Howard Stark. He made-and still makes-my brother's arms, free of charge. And Bucky's. And Misty's."

"I can't imagine having any of my limbs missing." Luke said. "Or an eye."

"Nate has a cyborg eye." Scott chuckled. "As in he can see out of it."

"Why doesn't Coach Fury or his kid Nick Fury Jr get one implanted then?"

"Come on, Luke. You _know_ Coach Fury is afraid of technology." Scott sighed. "If _he's_ afraid of getting one, he sure as hell won't let his _son_ get one. So they stick to eyepatches." He shrugged.

"Sound logic, Summers."

"Why thank you, Cage." Scott smirked.

* * *

In the third grade classroom, Danny walked in and found Wade already talking to Nathan.

"I know right?!" Wade laughed. "It's weird!"

"I guess..." Nathan rolled his eye. "It's just, I don't get what Frodo Baggins would be doing in Hogwarts. But then again, you don't make sense half the time anyway, do you, Wade?"

"I guess not. At least, that's what people say about me. It's not like I haven't had that said about me before, like my grandmother said I never make sense and so do my aunt and uncle and my stepfather-although he likes me-he calls me weird. Maybe it's because I like _SpongeBob SquarePants_, _Transformers_, _The Jetsons_, Bea Arthur, _The Simpsons_, _Batman_ and Ryan Reynolds or maybe it's because I'm a _Blue Jays_ fan and not a _Yankees_ fan like he is..."

"I'm gonna stop you right there." Nathan raised his hand. "Do you know what today is, Wade?" He asked.

"Can't say that I do, why?"

"It's the fifth anniversary of the day we met."

"Five years? Has it been that long?"

"Yup. Seems like yesterday, doesn't it?"

"I only remember that I liked you because we have the same birthday." Wade said smugly.

"No way, Wade. You like me for my personality."

"Personality?!" Wade snorted. "You're duller than a sack of potatoes and about as happy as a puppy being water boarded!"

"Well I lost my arm _and_ my eye to disease..."

"I know, Nate. I was there."

"For _some_ of it, anyway."

* * *

(Flashback)

"Mrs Summers, while you were gone, we changed some of Nathan's bandages." A nurse said to a relatively young blond haired woman.

"Right." She said, nodding slowly. "Any change in his condition?"

"He's noticed he's without an arm now, he knows it's been amputated."

"He's upset, isn't he?"

"He is indeed, Mrs Summers." The nurse nodded. "He needs his mother."

Nathan's mother walked over to her son and picked him up off his hospital bed. "Nathan, it's me, it's Mommy." She said soothingly as she sat down in a chair.

"Mommy?" He looked up at her and her heart broke at having to look down into her son's dead left eye. "When will I get my arm back?" She couldn't bring herself to tell him that he would never.

"You'll be getting a better arm soon, sweetie." She said, desperately trying to keep her voice from cracking.

"I can still feel it there, Mommy. My arm. I can feel it there. It hurts, Mommy."

"I know it does, sweetie." She began running her hand gently through Nathan's hair. Nathan wrapped his arm around his mother's neck.

"I feel like I'm hugging you with my other arm too, Mommy." Her toddler said sadly. Wanting to soothe her son, Nathan's mother rubbed his lower back, taking great care not to disturb the thick layers of bandaging around his chest and back.

"It's going to be okay, Nathan, I promise."

"I told you, Mommy. My name's not Nathan. It Cable." Nathan mumbled. He sniffled sadly into his mother's shoulder.

"Okay, okay. Cable, I promise you, everything will be alright." She said, feeling Nathan nod into her shoulder. She couldn't help but feel that she should be feeling Nathan's little shoulder pressing into her chest. Instead, his arm, his shoulder, parts of his chest-it had all been cut away in an attempt to save his life. It had obviously worked, even if her tiny toddler _had_ been in a coma for 14 weeks, fighting meningitis. He'd won his fight, Nathan was alive. But why was she so sad about it?

"Kate." She heard her name being called and looked to see her husband standing away from them. "How is he?"

"Upset." She said back. "Chris, you need to be looking after Gabe and Scott and Alex and Rachel. Let _me_ worry about Nathan."

"Cable." Nathan corrected, his voice muffled.

"Right. Cable."

"But Nath-_Cable_ is _my_ son too, Kate." Chris said, walking closer to the two. "I just spent the better part of three months watching my son teetering on the brink of death. I love him as much as I love our other children."

"I know you do, Chris. I just don't think it's fair on the other children that they miss out on both parents now that Na-_Cable_ is recovering."

"And I understand." Chris nodded. "I have the kids with the sitter. I wanted to see how my boy is recovering."

"Come hold him." Kate offered. Nathan let go of her and leaned his head on her chest.

"He looks so peaceful." Chris ran his hand through Nathan's hair. Nathan whined sadly.

"He's not dead. That's something you say when he's dead."

"It's also something you say when he's sleeping or when he looks peaceful."

"D'jou wanna take him, Chris?" Kate asked. Chris bent down to pick his son up. "Just hold him tight and keep him close to his IVs." She muttered as Chris held Nathan tightly.

"Go get something to eat or drink. Bring Nathan..."

"Cable." Nathan corrected grumpily.

"_Cable_ a Popsicle or something." Chris smiled. "Go on, we'll be fine, won't we, Buddy?" Nathan nodded.

"Alright." Kate agreed. "I'll be back soon, sweetie." She planted a kiss on Nathan's head and left the room.

* * *

After a quick restroom break, Kate wandered into the hospital cafeteria, looking lost and desperately concerned about her still-seriously ill son. Deep in thought, Kate bumped into another woman, causing the woman to spill soda on her top.

"Oh I'm _so_ sorry!" Kate said, offering napkins to the woman.

"That's alright, I should have been looking where I was going too." The woman took the napkins from Kate. "I'm just worried about my kid, you know?"

"I'm a mom too." Kate replied. "I have five kids. One of them..."

"Is here." The woman sighed, sadly. "Mine, too."

"How many?"

"Just the one." The woman replied. "A boy. He's just turned 4 years old."

"Mine too." Kate said. "The one who's here, I mean." She added.

"Is he...?"

"He's just come from the ICU." Kate sighed. "He's still _very_ seriously ill, but at least he's getting better."

"Mine's just got here." The woman threw the napkins in the bin. "Cancer."

"I'm so sorry." Kate said in shock. "If there's anything I can do for you and your husband, let me know."

"Oh my son's father... He's not around. He wasn't a nice man. That's why we moved to New York."

"Where are you originally from then?"

"Toronto." The woman said. "Do you mind me asking, why is your son...?"

"Meningitis." Kate cast her gaze downwards. "He lost his arm, shoulder and parts of his chest."

"I didn't know meningitis could _do_ that!"

"Once septicemia takes hold, the only option is amputation." Kate said, repeating the words spoken to her by Nathan's doctor.

"I'm very sorry to hear that."

"I'd better get back to my son and my husband." Kate said, walking out of the cafeteria.

"Wait!" The woman called after her. Kate turned around and saw the woman scribbling on a piece of paper. "Here's my cell number." She said, handing Kate the paper. "My name's Ashley Wilson."

"I'm Kate Summers."

"Maybe we can get our kids together, you know, since they're isolated from the world stuck in here."

"Maybe." Kate said with a small smile. It would do Nathan good for him to talk to someone his own age, rather than the adults he's interacted with exclusively for the past 4 months. She was certain it couldn't be good for any toddler to talk just to adults.

* * *

A few days later, Kate was sitting in the chair next to Nathan's hospital bed with Nathan sitting on her knee and still heavily bandaged. She was reading _The Cat in the Hat_ to Nathan while he was sucking hard on a Popsicle.

"Hey, Kate." Kate looked up from the book to see Ashley standing in the doorway. "I was going to take Wade to the art class. I was wondering if your Nathan wanted to come too." Nathan pulled the Popsicle from his mouth. "Cable!" He said indignantly.

"He just insists we call him Cable now."

"My Wade insists I call him Ryan." Ashley looked concerned. "Is that normal?"

"God yes!" Kate laughed. "My Gabe _and_ my Scott have gone through the same phase. It's just something toddlers do."

"How old are Scott and Gabe now?"

"Scott's 6 and Gabe's 8."

"You have younger children, right?"

"Alex is 3 and Rachel is 14 months. In case you were wondering. Rachel never got a 1st birthday _or_ a first Christmas, Na-Cable was comatose at the time."

"How did your older kids take it?"

"Gabe... He seemed-and still seems-indifferent to the whole affair." Kate explained. "Scott was deeply upset by it and just wants his little brother back. In fact, he spent all of Nath-Cable's 4th birthday by his side, watching over him. Chris and I, we had to pull him away."

"Your kids sound close. I'd like for Wade to have a brother or a sister someday."

"But then that sibling might hate him."

"True." Ashley shrugged. "So, _does_ Cable want to come to the art class?" She asked the little boy. Nathan nodded. "I hope you get along with my Wade. I hear you share the same birthday, February 10th." Nathan nodded again.

"It would be good for him, Ashley. Let him mix with kids his own age." Kate smiled sadly. "But we can't take him away from all his medical equipment. The oxygen cannula, the feeding tube, the IVs..."

"Wade has IV tubes too." Ashley said. "I know you're worried about what other kids might think of your son, now he has only one arm..."

"And half a body."

"... But you shouldn't. Kids are more accepting than adults."

"I'm just worried for my Nathan." Kate said, stroking Nathan's hair.

"Cable!" Nathan whined.

"My Cable."

"I'll bring my Wade here and the boys can play together, if that's okay with you?" Ashley asked.

"It's fine by me, I guess. I need to check it with my son's nurses..."

"Let me know." Ashley smiled and left the room.

"Is that your new friend, Mommy?" Nathan asked.

Kate nodded. "Yeah, she is, sweetie."

"She's nice." Nathan said, smiling approvingly.

"Yes. Yes, she is."

* * *

Later that day, Kate was still sitting in the chair, only now she was eating a sandwich and watching one of her older sons, Scott, help Nathan play with _Lego_. Ashley appeared again in the doorway.

"Hey, Ashley." Kate said. "My son's nurse said there's no risk of him passing the infection on now, he'll be fine to mingle with cancer patients."

"Oh, that's good. I've brought Wade along." Ashley smiled. She was holding the hand of a small boy with dirty blond hair that flopped over his eyes.

"Oh, Ashley, this is my son Scott."

"Nice to meet you, Scott." Ashley smiled. Scott looked up from his _Lego_ and frowned.

"Yeah." Scott grunted before retuning to play with his younger brother.

"Wade, come on in and play some _Lego_." Kate smiled at the young boy before turning to her own sons. "Scott, be nice."

"Mom, I don't want no one to laugh at Cable." Scott said.

"Wade won't make fun of your little brother. He's sick, too." Kate said assuringly.

Ashley led Wade into the room and Wade gingerly walked over to Nathan's hospital bed, where Scott was playing with Nathan.

"Uh... Hi." Wade rubbed his arm anxiously. "I'm Wade Wilson."

"I'm Cable." Nathan gave a small smile. Scott put his arm around Nathan's neck. "That's Scott, he's my big brother."

"Hi, Scott." Wade said quietly.

"Do you want to play _Lego_ with us?" Scott asked. "I have _Batman_ _Lego_."

"I like _Batman_." Wade nodded.

"Wade's such a cute little boy, Ashley." Kate smiled. "So quiet, too."

"Oh, you won't say that when you get to know him!" Ashley laughed. "Sometimes I think he'll never shut up!"

"He's scared, isn't he?"

"He's only 4. And he's facing a long battle." Ashley sighed. "I'm 24 and I've never been through half the things my Wade's been through. Life just isn't fair sometimes."

"I know what you mean." Kate said. "My Nathan's still got operations planned. Skin grafts, mostly. And his wounds have to be cleaned out-it's almost like scrubbing them-just so the skin around doesn't die..." Her voice cracked slightly.

"It looks like the boys have really hit it off." Ashley smiled, observing the two toddlers playing, in a bid to change the subject.

"It does." Kate agreed. "So when you said Wade's father wasn't a good guy...?"

"He didn't abuse me or Wade, if that's what you're thinking." Ashley said quickly. "He's a wonderful father to Wade... He just wasn't a good fiancé. Cheated on me-twice."

"I'm sorry to hear." Kate said.

"Mom, I gotta go potty." Scott called out.

"Scott..."

"Go take Scott to the bathroom, I can watch the boys. And there's nurses patrolling the place so Cable won't be short of medical attention, god forbid, should he need it."

"Well, the bathroom _is_ just around the corner..." Kate nodded. "Scott, take my hand." The older boy slid off the hospital bed and ran to take his mother's hand. "He's usually quick, we'll be back in a minute." She said as they left the room.

"Mommy's gone." Nathan said, sadly.

"You heard her, she's just taking your brother to the bathroom." Ashley smiled at the one armed little boy who was looking at her sadly. "She'll be back, I promise." Nathan nodded and moved back to his _Lego_.

"Do you like _Mickey Mouse Clubhouse_?" Wade asked after a brief pause.

"Yeah." Nathan nodded. "But I got sick and had to come to hopsital and now I don't see it no more."

"I love _Mickey Mouse_." Wade said with a smile. "What happened to your arm? Where is it?" Nathan looked at Wade in confusion.

"Wade honey, Cable here... Well, his arm made him go sick. To make him better, doctors had to take it off."

"Will it grow back?"

"Wade, no. It won't." Wade looked at Nathan who nodded.

"But Mommy said I gonna get a better arm. And it will be better than _Batman_."

"_Nothing's_ better than _Batman_!" Wade cried out. He and Nathan began to laugh and Kate and Scott reentered the room.

"They really _have_ hit it off, haven't they?" Kate said.

"They have. I haven't seen my son this happy in ages." Ashley smiled.

* * *

(Present Day)

In the classroom, Wade ran his hand through his hair while Nathan opened his backpack.

"We've both been through really hard times." Nathan said, pulling out a new Batman pen.

"Damn right... Cable." Wade smirked.

"Shut up... Dead Pool" Nathan playfully nudged Wade, who chuckled softly.

"You, Bob and Weasel are my best friends."

"But _especially_ me, right?" Nathan flashed Wade a wry smile.

"That's right, buddy."

"Y'know, next month, it'll be the anniversary of when we met Bob." Nathan nodded and smiled.

* * *

(Flashback)

"Wade!" Nathan ran as fast as he could to his friend. They were in a big room being used for art therapy. A nurse stood her distance, smiling as Wade wrapped his arms around Nathan. Wade was now bald from the chemotherapy. Nathan had bandages wrapped around his arm and a gauze pad taped to his left eye.

"Cable, what happened to your eye?"

"It gone now, like my arm." Nathan smiled as he picked up a red crayon from the table and began to draw on a piece of paper.

"Cable, this is Bob." Wade pointed to a nervous looking brown haired boy, who wasn't attached to an IV like Wade or a feeding tube like Nathan. "He's gonna have a operation on his heart."

"Mom said my heart don't work properly." Bob looked up at Nathan. "So the doctors are gonna fix it."

"They got good doctors here. They made me better when I got sick." Nathan nodded.

"What are you drawing?" Wade pushed his own paper away and looked at Nathan's.

"Bunny." Nathan replied, not losing his focus.

"I like bunnies." Wade affirmed.

"Bunnies are cute." Bob agreed. "Penguins _much_ cuter." Bob looked at Nathan and the lack of a left arm under his pajama top. "What happened to your arm?"

"My arm made me sick but the doctors made me better by taking it away." Nathan picked up a blue crayon and started coloring his bunny. "It hard to color without my arm." He growled at the paper, which was sliding on the table.

"I can help you, Cable!" Wade declared proudly, putting his hand on Nathan's paper. Nathan smiled thankfully at Wade.

"What are _you_ drawing?" Nathan asked, putting down his crayon.

"I did a bird." Wade said.

"And I did _SpongeBob SquarePants_." Bob said.

"Well Easter is next week. I made my bunny the Easter Bunny." Nathan pulled his paper off the table and showed it to Wade and Bob.

* * *

(Present day)

"And I remember how that Easter went." Wade rolled his eyes. He and Nathan were sitting outside at lunchtime, making the most of what little sun they were getting. "It was weird. I didn't know the Easter Bunny even came to hospitals, but since it was a children's hospital, I guess he would have-Nate, what if the Easter Bunny is actually an Easter Chick? I mean, rabbits don't lay eggs, but hens do, so I guess it wouldn't be the Easter Chick, it would be the Easter Chicken or maybe the Easter Hen..."

"Wade..." Nathan raised his eyebrow. "Shut up."

"You got it." Wade cast his gaze downwards as he took a bite out of his sandwich.

"Oh and Wade." Nathan began. Wade looked up at him curiously. "Thanks. For being my best friend. I'm glad our moms had that random meet up at the hospital all those years ago. If they hadn't, you wouldn't be in my life. You're annoying, overbearing, hyperactive and talkative..." Nathan sighed. "But you're also my friend."

"You're my friend too, Cable." Wade and Nathan shared a knowing smirk before going back to eating their lunches.

* * *

**A/N: Happy Easter!**

**I got this idea when I found and reread all my old Cable and Deadpool comics. Wade goes to some lengths for Nathan, who really appreciates it. When things go wrong, Nathan is genuinely apologetic to Wade. Even though he seems to only barely tolerate Wade on the surface, there seems to be a deeper friendship there. I think I did an okay job matching their childhood origins to their adult ones-Wade had childhood cancer and Nathan was sick and lost his arm and eye to the illness (they're back now, but I bet before long he'll be infected with the Techno-Organic Virus and lose them again).**

**I also know Scott is the oldest Summers brother. I don't care. I also don't care that Nathan and Rachel are his children and Hope is (technically) his grandchild, but they're all siblings here. And Scott (Cyclops), Alex (Havok) and Gabe (Vulcan), their parents ARE called Christopher and Katherine. In fact, Cable's middle name is Christopher after Scott's father, who is Corsair of the Starjammers. Although I don't really like the X Men, I know a lot about them. Thanks, Dad.**

**And I didn't like the Deadpool revelation of Original Sin. But I wasn't meant to. Even Sabretooth gave Deadpool a dirty look after witnessing what Deadpool did. Sabretooth-the vicious and remorseless killer was even disgusted with what Deadpool did. So as not much is known about Wade's family-beyond what implanted memories Deadpool had of them and eventually what he did to them-so I gave him a new one.**

**Yes, Bob had a heart condition, no, Weasel is healthy, yes, that was a reference to the fact that Ryan Reynolds is playing Deadpool in the new movie (X Men Origins: Wolverine never happened, guys), no, I'm not gonna do a follow up talent show chapter unless you want me to. **

**I don't own any of the X Men, The Jetsons, SpongeBob SquarePants, Mickey Mouse or anything or anyone else in this chapter, apart from Deadpool's parents. **


	11. Valentines Day Part VI

Bucky stood in the doorway of his grandmother's house. He, his mother and sister were heading off home.

"I'll see you next week, Winifred." Bucky's grandmother said to his mother.

"I love you, Mom." Bucky's mother hugged her mother.

"I know." Bucky's grandmother said, pulling away from the hug. "Don't push James. That's not what he needs. He needs love and understanding."

"I know, Mom."

"Be patient. He's had a lot of brain damage. He's coming more and more into himself. Don't spoil it."

"I've never dealt with anything like this before."

"I know. Nobody's taught how to deal with something like this."

"I'm just happy he's alive."

"I know." Bucky's grandmother turned to his sister. "I'll see you next week, Becky."

"I love you, Grandma!" Becky squealed, throwing her arms around her grandmother.

"I'll see you next week, James." She said, holding Bucky's flesh hand. Bucky nodded quietly. "Take care!" She shouted after her family, who began piling themselves into Winifred's car. Skye ran up to Bucky before he could climb in.

"Bucky, can I see you on Monday in school?" She asked.

Bucky nodded. "Yeah. I like you. You can meet my best friend Steve. He'd like you too."

"Oh." Skye said, a hint of disappointment in her voice. "Okay."

"I'll see you on Monday." Bucky smiled and climbed into his mother's car.

* * *

The movie had ended and the kids all came from the theater.

"That was awesome!" Wade shouted. "I loved the bit where they all turned into superheroes because superheroes are awesome! I wonder what life would be like if we were all superheroes? Steve would be Captain America I guess, because go Patriots and apple pie and he would have the power to turn everything American! Clint would be like a Robin Hood kind of guy with his archery-ooh! He could be called Hawkeye! And Thor and Loki would have like Norse god powers, seeing as they're named after Norse gods anyway and they would be called Captain Thor and Mister Loki... No, just Thor and Loki would do. Nathan would be Cable like he called himself as a kid and he would have a super strong fake arm, just like Bucky-he can be in our superhero group too-and maybe Tony's father can give Nate an upgrade on his eye to make it shoot lasers or something! And my superpower would be to heal from my injuries, because I get hurt a _lot_..." Wade babbled as they walked to the cinema lobby.

"He won't shut up now, will he?" Nick groaned.

"Chances are, he won't." Maria sighed. "What do you think, Clint?" Clint shrugged.

"He took out his hearing aids about the time Wade started talking." Phil explained.

"Wade was getting on my nerves so I took my hearing aids out." Clint repeated.

"I like Wade." Bob said. "It's just his talking annoys me when he just goes on."

"Captain America my ass." Natasha scoffed.

"Language!" Steve said.*

"Steve might love the _Pats_ and apple pie and go to Boy Scouts but that doesn't mean everything he touches should turn to American." Nathan shook his head.

"... And maybe Stephen Strange should be in our group too, he can baffle the bad guys with his awesome cool magic tricks. But if we include Strange then we should include Wanda. She can do awesome magic as well. And Hank and his ants-but then again, those ants are pretty awesome as well. Oh! And Danny can do good karate... I just realized now that almost everyone in our school could be a superhero."

"Are you quite done, Wade?" Loki asked.

"Uh... Yeah." Wade nodded.

"Good."

"Oh no..." Peter groaned and hid his face with his arm.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"My aunt and uncle!" Peter whined. "They're here for that _50 Shades_ movie!"

"So are _my_ parents!" Nathan hissed.

"Let's get out of here before I see _my_ parents!" Phil said urgently and the kids all hurried out of the cinema, narrowly avoiding bumping into Phil's foster parents.

* * *

"So I guess I'll see you in school." Bob said, breaking away from his small group of himself, Nathan, Wade and Weasel, which had separated from the main group outside the cinema earlier.

"I guess." Wade shrugged. "I'll see you at school then, Bob. Don't forget what's happening Monday though, it's Show and Tell."

"Alright, see you." Bob waved to the rest of the group and walked over to his apartment block.

"I'm gonna call my dad to pick me up from your place when the _50 Shades_ is over, Wade." Nathan said as the three boys carried on walking to Wade and Weasel's apartment block-next to Bob's.

"Yeah that's okay. I mean, my Mom's also gone to see that 5_0 Shades_ _of_ Sexytime movie."

"Don't you have a sitter?" Weasel asked.

"Yeah, I do." Wade replied. "His name is Terry and he's pretty cool. So you should be okay, Nate."

"Alright." Nathan shrugged as the trio entered the apartment building.

"I'm on the first floor." Bob said. "I'm taking the stairs as usual. My doctor says I have to get regular exercise or my heart won't work properly. Again."

"Alright. See you, Bob!" Wade shouted as Bob disappeared on the stairs.

"Nate, you been to my place recently?" Wade asked as he called the elevator.

"Uh... Not since I think Halloween? Remember that? That was good! Clint went as a robot, Phil went as James Bond, you went as one of the _Ghostbusters_, Weasel went as Hercules and Bob went as the hydra while I went as the _6 Million Dollar Man_."

"Yeah, that was pretty fun!" Wade laughed. "We gotta do it again! Well, _next_ Halloween." The boys stepped into the elevator and Wade pressed a button. "Well, the reason I asked is because a new neighbor moved in. Yeah." Wade said, taking in the stunned look on Nathan's face. "Mr Liefeld next door kind of-I dunno-dropped down dead and over Christmas a new person moved in. She's an old lady who's... Blind."

"And she lives alone?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah." Wade shrugged as the elevator dinged.

* * *

"Hi, Mrs Smith!" Maria said, all sugary sweet on the doorstep of her neighbor.

"Hello, Maria." Carla answered. "How did you enjoy your time with your friends?"

"We saw the new _SpongeBob_ movie." Maria nodded.

"I hear it's good." Carla nodded. "Well, my nephew certainly thinks so anyway."

"I'm taking Ethan home now." Maria said as her younger brother appeared at the door.

"I'll see you around then, Maria, Ethan." Carla smiled at the two kids as they walked away from her house.

* * *

"Junior!" Nick Sr shouted as Nick Jr walked through his front door.

"Y... Yeah, Dad?" Nick Jr asked uncertainly. "What's Dum Dum doing here?" He asked, gesturing to the ginger haired man with a mustache standing next to his father.

"Your mom and I are going to the next showing of _50 Shades of Grey_. Dum Dum will be looking after you, your brother and Skye for the next two hours." Nick Sr said.

"Nick! Let me grab my coat!" Nia said, grabbing her coat as Nick Sr peppered her neck with kisses.

"Alright, see you in the morning, kids." Nick Sr said, opening the front door. "See you, later, buddy." He said to Dum Dum.

"Bye, Dad!" Mikel said. "Bye Nia." Nick Jr stood staring at the door, disgusted.

"So kids, how about a game of _Monopoly_!" Dum Dum asked happily, clapping his hands together.

"I'd rather die." Mikel groaned.

"_Connect 4_?"

"There's 4 of _us_." Nick Jr pointed out.

"_Twister_?" Dum Dum suggested. "Nope. Bad idea. Let's just play _Mario Kart_. You have that still, right?" Skye nodded. "All righty then! We'll do that!" Dum Dum led the kids into the front room. "You do anything interesting today?"

"I went to see the new _SpongeBob_ movie." Nick Jr said.

"And I made a snowman with my new friend, Bucky." Skye smiled.

"That's _your_ snowman in front?" Dum Dum asked turned on the Wii and set the channel.

"Yep. Winter Soldier." Skye said proudly.

"Well, it's very good." Dum Dum said, picking up four _Wii_ remotes. "And what did _you_ do, Mikel?"

"Nothing." Mikel shrugged.

"You were pining over Angela Odinsdottir!" Nick Jr said loudly.

"No I wasn't!" Mikel shouted defensively. He turned to Dum Dum. "I wasn't! I really wasn't!"

* * *

"Hello, Thor, hello Loki!" A woman said kindly as Thor and Loki walked through the front door. She was knitting and sitting next to a man reading the paper. Opposite them was a girl playing on a _Nintendo 3DS_.

"Did you enjoy your movie?" The man asked.

"Yes, Father." Thor said excitedly. "We went to see _SpongeBob SquarePants: Sponge Out of Water_. I very much enjoyed it and so did Loki, isn't that right, Brother?"

"I did not quite enjoy it with as much fervor as Wade Wilson did, but as far as movies go, this one was passable." Loki replied.

"Okay, that is good, sons." Thor and Loki's father said. "I am happy you both enjoyed yourselves."

"Father, why are you and Mother fully dressed?" Thor asked. "Surely you are not going to see that _50 Shades of_..."

"Indeed we are, Thor." Thor and Loki's mother replied. "We're waiting for the Coulsons."

"Is everyone going to see _50 Shades of_ Bull?" Loki asked.

"Loki, be polite." Their father said.

"Leave him alone, Odin. At least he never said the swear." There was a knock at the door and Thor and Loki's mother put her knitting down and went to answer the door. "Rob, Julie, we're ready."

"Have you got a babysitter? Who's looking after your kids?" Robert asked.

"Heimdall the school security guard lives next door." Odin said. "We have asked him to keep an eye on the children."

"Ah." Julie nodded. "We have Sarah Rogers looking after ours."

"So, Frigga, you said you were ready?" Robert questioned.

"Yes." Frigga turned to the children. "Be good. Mr Heimdall is next door if you need him and your father and I are just a phone call away." The kids nodded and the four adults left the house for the movie.

* * *

"Thanks for letting me stay here tonight, Mr Osborn." Peter said, eating a bowl of cereal at Norman Osborn's kitchen island.

"That's fine, Peter." Norman said with a smile. "You're always welcome here."

"Harry and I are gonna play _Battleship_ later."

"Are you?"

"Yeah." Peter nodded. "It's fun. I like _Battleship_."

"You're not watching the _Battleship_ movie?"

"No way!" Peter squealed. "That movie was terrible. It would have been better if it were two guys playing Battleship."

"Hey, Peter." Harry said, walking over to the sink. "_Battleship_?"

"You bet!" Peter slid down from his stool and he and Harry ran out of the kitchen.

* * *

"Is everyone comfortable?" Sarah asked. She was standing in front of the TV in the Coulson apartment. The Coulson children, the Romanova children and her son Steve were sitting on and in front of the couch. A bowl of popcorn was sitting between Phil and Evengy on the floor.

"Yes!" The kids called out frustratedly.

"Just put the movie on already!" Hannah shouted.

"Yeah, we're all old enough to be watching _Toy Story_." Rachel muttered.

"Alright already!" Sarah pressed play on the DVD player and sat down next to Steve on the couch.

* * *

Clint walked through his apartment door to find his mother and brother sitting on the couch and the bouquet of flowers torn up and thrown in the bin. Clint could see is mother talking to him, but he could hardly understand.

"Clint, wow? was dog? movie?" Clint's mother asked as Clint tried to lip read. Tried being the operative word.

_I can't hear. I have my hearing aids out_. Clint signed.

_I'm sorry Clint_. His mother signed. _I asked how was your movie._

_It was good_. Clint smiled and nodded_. Even if it was sometimes hard to hear even with the aids in._

What movie did you see? Barney signed.

_SpongeBob SquarePants_. Clint grinned. He always liked signing _SpongeBob SquarePants._

Was it funny? Barney asked.

"Yeah, it was!" Clint squealed loudly, unaware of the volume he was speaking at. "They all turned into superheroes-even Plankton-and that was pretty cool."

We're just watching _Modern Family_ if you want to join us? Clint's mother said. Clint shrugged and walked over to the couch. His mother picked up the remote control and turned the subtitles on._Modern Family_ with her sons was a good end to the stressful Valentine's Day she'd had. And after all, she was going to see _50 Shades of Grey_ the next day with Sarah Rogers and Marie Danvers. Single moms, unite!

* * *

**A/N: Sorry I took so long updating. I hope this was an acceptable ending.**

**Yes, I introduced a few new characters here-Terry Preston and Blind Al-Deadpool supporting characters-Dum Dum Dugan, Odin, Frigga and Norman Osborn. Mr Liefeld is indeed a reference to Rob Liefeld, co-creator of Cable and Deadpool. I don't like his art, but he was a necessary evil to get so many great things we enjoy today, such as; Deadpool, Cable, X Force and the Walking Dead**

**I had such a great reaction from the Cable and Deadpool chapter that I might actually spin off from it. What would you think about that?**

*** Yes, it's an Age of Ultron joke.**

**I don't own the Avengers, the X Men, the Inhumans or any other characters other than Phil's foster sisters, Bucky's grandmother and Natasha's family.**


	12. Loki's Favorite Holiday

"Watch out for Loki." May Parker said to Erik Selvig when she bumped into him in the school hallway. "He's pulling pranks and winding other students up."

"May, please don't tell me that, that's the last thing I need to hear." Erik put his head in his hands and clutched onto his briefcase extra hard.

"No shit." Frank Castle grunted as he walked through the hallway, rightly gripping a _Joker_ mug full of coffee. "It's his favorite holiday-April 1st, April Fools Day and I am going to be terribly overworked today."

"Lord, give me strength." Erik muttered and walked away from May and Frank.

"I'm so sorry." May put her hand sympathetically on Frank's shoulder.

"I don't get paid enough to deal with the victims of Loki's pranks." Frank walked away, taking a sip of his coffee. May shook her head and walked into her own classroom.

* * *

Carol entered the 4th grade classroom apprehensively. Loki and Thor were already in there before her and she was the sixth kid in. She took a look around and noticed Sif was washing her paint covered hoodie with baby wipes, Bruce was tugging at his sweater sleeve-it had probably been glued to his desk, Maria was covered in glitter so much that she looked like a human disco ball and that there were ants all over the classroom floor because somehow Hank's ant farm had been tipped over.

Carol sat down at her seat and felt a sharp pain in one of her bum cheeks. She screamed out accordingly and Loki roared with laughter. Carol jumped up from her seat instinctively and patted around her bum. Jane ran into the classroom.

"Carol, what's wrong?" She asked, urgently.

"There's something sharp on my butt." Carol squealed. "I've been stabbed on my butt."

"No, it's just a tack." Jane said, examining Carol's bum. "It's pretty in there deep." She said. "You might have to go to the nurse."

"I don't think Nurse Rogers would be here yet." Carol said, gritting her teeth.

"Maybe Frank can help." Jane suggested.

"I'm _not_ going to see Frank over a tack in my ass." Carol growled.

"You're gonna have to see _someone._" Jane argued. "Carol Susan Jane Danvers... There's a tack... In. Your. Ass." Loki snickered.

"It's not funny, Loki!" Carol whined.

"It totally is."

"No, Loki, it isn't." Jane folded her arms and stared down the boy.

"One second, Jane." Loki put up his finger and grabbed a bottle of _Coke _from his backpack. He opened the lid as Peter Parker took a seat next to him and _Coke_ sprayed all over poor Peter.

"Loki!" Peter shouted. "For God's sake! Stop!"

"What's going on here, then?" Came a low growl from the doorway. Loki froze. The one teacher he was actually afraid of was standing in the doorway... Mr McKenzie.

"Uh... Mr McKenzie... Sir." Loki babbled. "I wasn't doing..."

"Why is there soda all over the classroom floor?" Mr McKenzie asked. "Do you want ants? Because this is how you get ants."

"Sorry, Sir, I..."

"Oh... I see there are ants on the floor as well-yours, I'm guessing, Hank?" Hank nodded sadly.

Mr McKenzie turned sharply to glare at Loki. "Loki, what do you have to say for yourself?"

"Uh... Sorry, Hank?" Loki said, sounding more like a question than a statement.

"I'm sending you to Principal Xavier."

"What?!" Loki cried out. "Not fair!"

"_Yes_ fair." Mr McKenzie said adamantly. "You knocked over Hank's ant farm-he's been working hard on that all year-you sprayed Peter with cola and I just _know_ you have something to do with the glitter covering Maria, the paint covering Sif and the glue on Bruce's sweater."

"He also stuck a tack in Carol's butt." Jane said, casually gesturing to Carol who was still standing next to her.

"In?" Jane nodded. "Carol, let me see." Mr McKenzie said more softly. Carol turned around and Mr McKenzie bent down to examine her. "Carol, that's not a tack, that's a nail. I'm gonna get you to Nurse Rogers, but before we do that, we're taking Loki to see the principal."

"Does a nail mean it's worse?" Carol asked, her voice filled with dread.

"I'm sorry, but yes." Mr McKenzie said, standing up. "It's something we have to show the principal so he can call your parents. You might even need to go to hospital, but we'll see what Nurse Rogers says."

* * *

Loki reentered the classroom after around an hour, when Mr Selvig was teaching about long multiplication. Carol, Peter, Maria, Bruce, Jane, Sif and Hank all glared at him.

"Loki, I hope you had a good talk with Principal Xavier." Loki simply grunted and sat down. "I know what day it is today, but you can't glitter bomb your classmates. Or put glue on their clothes. Or Paint. Or douse them in soda. Or put tacks on their seats. Or destroy their ant farms. Leave the pranks for recess."

"Whatever." Loki mumbled, laying his head in his arms.

"Now here's another method of doing long multiplication." Mr Selvig said, picking up a marker. "Let's say we want to multiply 1964 by... 109. How would we go about doing this? Well first we start off..."

Loki stopped paying attention and looked out the window. He sighed and his eyes wandered around the classroom. Hank was taking notes, as only Hank Pym could. Thor was doodling on his worksheet. Clint was watching his interpreter. Phil was tapping his pencil on the desk. Almost everyone except Bruce, Carol, Stephen, Hank, Tony and Jane looked like they'd rather not be there. Loki died a bit inside. When he checked his Armored Man and Beast Thing watch, he felt a _lot_ better knowing that recess was straight around the corner.

* * *

Steve and Bucky were sitting on the grass on the playground with Skye, all eating their lunches. Natasha walked up to them with Hank and Phil.

"Mind if we join you?" She asked.

"Not at all." Bucky gestured to the free space on the grass.

"I like that it's getting warm enough for us to do this." Hank said as he sat down.

"I can't wait for summer. It's my 10th birthday in July." Phil smiled and opened up his _Green Lantern_ lunchbox.

"Uh... Hey. I have't met _you_ before?" Skye said curiously, pointing at Hank.

"Oh... Uh..." Hank put his sandwich down.

"Skye, this is Hank Pym-or as we call him, Ant Man." Steve smiled.

"Why?"

"He _really_ loves ants." Bucky interrupted.

"Yeah. And I don't like that nickname." Hank narrowed his eyes.

"Whatever. We know you like it really." Natasha giggled.

"I actually _really_ don't." Hank muttered.

"And Hank, this is my good friend Skye, she's Nick Fury's foster sister." Bucky smiled

"How come I never met her _before_, then?" Hank asked.

"He has a brother, Mikel." Phil shrugged, taking a bite of his sandwich.

"That, I _also_ didn't know." Hank's eyes widened. "I just assumed he was an only kid, like me."

"I'm an only kid." Steve nodded.

"I'm an only kid too-I don't have any real brothers or sisters." Skye said.

"Same here." Phil sighed. "I live with my foster family, but I have no _real_ brothers or sisters."

"Bruce is another only kid." Steve said.

"Uh... Stephen, Darcy, Jess, Peter, Star Lord, Jane, Janet, Sam, Tony, Rhodey and Carol are all only kids too." Natasha added.

"Carol is _not_ an only kid!" Bucky almost shouted.

"Yeah and neither is Rhodey." Steve raised an eyebrow.

"Carol's older brother died, leaving only her behind. That makes her an only kid." Natasha reasoned. "Same with Rhodey and his older sister."

"They were still siblings at one point." Phil agreed.

"Yeah, but Natasha's kind of right. They aren't now." Steve shrugged.

"I heard though-from my mom-that Carol Danvers' mom is having another baby." Hank said.

"You hear _everything_ through your mom." Steve argued.

"My mom knows everyone's moms." Hank frowned.

"Yes, she does." Natasha finished her sandwich and picked up an apple. "Do you hear something?" She asked.

"I hear music." Skye said. "Very faint music."

"I'm gonna go check it out." Bucky said, pushing himself off the ground. He walked away, leaving the rest of the group.

"D'jou think he'll be okay?" Natasha asked.

"Course." Steve snorted. "He's Bucky Barnes."

"Steve!" Bucky shouted from across the playground. "You might want to have a look at this!"

"Anyone wanna come with me?" Steve asked as he brought himself to his feet.

"Yeah, I'll come." Hank said, packing the rest of his lunch into his backpack.

"I'll admit, whatever it is Bucky's found, I wanna have a look at." Natasha chuckled.

"Me too." Phil kept his lunchbox into his backpack. "It'll be sad if it's a dead bird though."

"I wanna check this out, too." Skye added.

"Alright, let's go. Follow the music." Steve said, leading everyone across the school yard.

"I can hear the music get louder." Hank said.

"And clearer." Natasha added. "I think it's _America the Beautiful_."

"No, you're right, it is." Phil frowned thoughtfully. "I wonder what's going on."

"I can _guess_ what's going on." Natasha sighed.

"That's _definitely_-like really for sure-_America the Beautiful_." Skye said.

"Steve..." Bucky pointed to the dumpsters. There, a life sized cardboard cutout of _Superman_ was painted the pattern of the American flag with the face of _New England Patriots_ quarterback Tom Brady pasted over the face, while a small flag flew behind him on a small flag pole, blowing in the wind.

"I can feel the righteousness already, can't you?" Loki smirked.

"Loki, take this down." Steve said, unimpressed with Loki's prank. "Now."

"It was just a bit of fun." Loki grunted as Skye turned the music off.

"It's April Fools Day, I get that, it's just that nobody finds this funny, except you." Natasha folded her arms.

"Well of course." Loki said as if it were obvious. "Pranks are for the benefit of the prankster. Me."

"You are a piece of work, do you know that?" Hank shook his head as he helped Bucky and Phil put the cardboard cutout of _Superman_ in the dumpster while Steve held open the lid.

"Fine." Loki said, putting his _iPod_ and portable speakers into his backpack. "I think your nickname is dumb anyway." He closed up his backpack.

"And get this flag of this pole. It belongs on the flagpole inside Mrs Parker's classroom." Skye said. "Not on this knockoff pole."

"I'll have you know it's a ceremonial flagpole that I ordered off e_Bay_ with my father's credit card."

"And you bought it _without_ the flag?" Natasha asked as Loki removed the flag from it.

"Yes." He handed the flag to Skye. "There are plenty of American flags here and I am not American, so why would I order one?" Loki shrugged and picked up the flagpole before walking away. Loki began swinging the pole around as if it were a magic wand.

"Loki, I wouldn't be swinging that pole around if I were you." Natasha said.

"You should learn to lighten up, Natasha, I am causing no harm!" Loki chuckled.

"It's all well and fine, but you're gonna hit one of us in the head." Hank complained.

"I am surprised you are not more worried about me smashing your precious ant farm, Ant Man."

"I don't like that name, Loki and you know that." Hank growled.

"Yes, I am aware." Loki smirked. "I just find it amusing."

"And you smashed up my ant farm earlier today."

"I did _not_ 'smash your ant farm', I merely liberated the ants within."

"Same difference." Hank folded his arms. "And _that_ wasn't funny either."

"Liberating the ants _was_ amusing." Loki insisted.

"I don't care _what_ you find funny, just stop waving that flagpole!" Steve shouted desperately.

"Fine." Loki let the flagpole drop to his side, along with his hand.

"Good." Steve sighed. "Now let's just go inside."

Steve, Bucky, Natasha, Hank, Phil, Skye and Loki began their journey across the playground and into the school.

"So Loki _always_ plays pranks, right?" Skye asked.

"Yeah. Pretty much." Bucky shrugged.

"Sometimes he comes off as miserable, but he's really just planning his next prank." Hank said.

"It's annoying when he does it like this." Bucky added.

"Yeah, stealing flags to tick off Steve isn't very creative." Phil chuckled.

"Why do it though?"

"Because Steve's nickname is... Gah!" Phil was cut off. Loki tripped over his shoelaces and the flagpole he had been carrying, pierced through Phil's chest with force.

"Phil!" Everyone screamed as Phil fell to his knees, breathing heavily. Everyone crowded Phil. Natasha noticed Loki on the floor and ran to him.

"Loki, are you okay?" Natasha asked, pulling Loki to his feet.

"I... I am fine." Loki said in shock and ignoring his bloodied knees.

"Holy crap." Luke Cage muttered to himself as he and Danny Rand ran up to Phil to help out. "We saw everything, we'll make sure that the teachers know it was an accident."

"Yeah, Loki." Danny added. "This _wasn't_ your fault."

"Well you shouldn't have been carrying that flag, but it wasn't _really_ your fault." Luke said. He grabbed Phil's shoulders. "Phil, you need to stay with me, look at me." Phil turned to look at Luke.

"Luke... Am I gonna die?" He asked.

"No." Luke said adamantly. "You won't die."

"What's going on here?" Brian Braddock and his twin sister Betsy Braddock ran up to the kids.

"Nothing, Brian." Danny said.

"Something's _obviously_ gone on, since Phil Coulson looks like rotisserie chicken." Betsy scoffed.

"If you wanna do something to help, Betsy, go get Ms. Carter, Mrs. Parker, Mr. Warlock-anyone!" Luke said urgently. "Phil's gonna die if we don't get him help... Like 2 minutes ago."

"You need to put pressure on the wound, Luke." Brian said.

"And for God's sake _don't_ try to pull the staff from Phil's chest." Betsy ran up to them and pulled off her scarf. "You're going to want to plug the bleeding. Brian, go see to Loki, make sure he's alright. Luke, you go calm down Natasha, Steve, James, Hank and Skye. Danny, go get help."

"Luke just said I'm gonna die, Betsy." Phil said sadly.

"No, you won't." Betsy interrupted. "Because we're gonna get you help."

"You're acting so awfully calm about this."

"Because if I freaked out, you'd die." Betsy said, her voice trembling slightly.

"That must have been some force to get that pole through Phil like that." Brian whispered in Betsy's ear.

"Hmm. I wonder..." She muttered, still holding her scarf to Phil's wound.

* * *

"I know that, Namor." Dum Dum Dugan said to another middle aged teacher-Namor McKenzie They were sitting at a table in the cafeteria eating lunch with some of the other teachers. "But it's just impractical."

"I'll tell _you_ what's impractical, Dum Dum." Nick Fury Sr said. "And that's little kids drowning or getting eaten by sharks after their plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean because they haven't got the necessary swimming skills for their young survival."

"Who said it's the Atlantic Ocean, Fury?" A much younger man asked. "Why not the Pacific Ocean? It's warmer, so more sharks."

"See, Dum Dum!" Nick Fury Sr chuckled. "Toro's got the right idea."

"Well, I did raise him right." An thirty-something man said.

"Jim! You can't take credit for raising him!" Namor argued. "You only looked after Toro when he was a teenager."

"Hey!" Jim protested. "It's not easy looking after a super powered teenager during their times of hormone crises and high emotions-_especially_ when said teenager can turn himself into a human fireball and fly away."

"Well, _you're_ a human fireball as well." Dum Dum shrugged.

"That's partly why I took Toro on." Jim said, waving a fry in Dum Dum's face. "And got him a job here as my library assistant while he did his degree."

"Alright! We'll try the swimming lessons next school year!" Dum Dum chuckled.

"And on that note, I'm gonna go get myself a drink of water." Toro walked over to the water fountain and began filling a plastic cup with water.

"Mr Raymond!" Danny shouted, panting. "Come quickly!" He grabbed the young librarian's arm and began pulling him away from the cafeteria.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Danny." The young man said, putting down his cup of water. "Wanna tell me what's going on first?"

"Phil Coulson's been stabbed!"

* * *

**A/N: Yep. This is a kiddy version of what happened in the Avengers. And a suggestion that Loki might be something more. **

**Please welcome Namor the Submariner into the universe. The librarian is Thomas Raymond/Toro and he's been introduced properly in Kid Cable and Kid Deadpool, along with some of the aftermath of this. He is as he is in the comics-an Inhuman. That's kind of what Psylocke and Captain Britain are implying for Loki, but they'll find out who Loki TRULY is in good time. Also, an introduction for Psylocke and Captain Britain. Betsy and Brian Braddock. **

**I had to move Loki's story along somehow and by having him accidentally skewer Phil Coulson-who was stabbed by him in the Avengers anyway-with a flag intended to tease Steve seemed the best way to do it.**

**Fun fact: the maths question-1964 x 109 is the date the first Avengers comic was released, 10/9/1964=10th of September 1964. **

**I don't own any of the characters. **


	13. Science Fair Part I

Erik walked up the steps to work on Monday morning. Heimdall the security guard was waiting as usual.

"Heard anything about Phil Coulson?" Erik asked.

"I hear he's still in intensive care." Heimdall replied with a sigh. "Though he's awake now."

"That poor boy." Erik shook his head. "And Loki? Any idea how he's doing?"

"None. I haven't seen Odin _or_ Frigga since the accident."

"I hope he's okay, too." Erik nodded and walked through the doors of the school.

* * *

When Mr Selvig got to the class, he found half of the students weren't there and everyone who was were crowded around Thor's desk.

"Alright class!" He called out. "Everyone to your desks." Clint signed quickly over to his teacher who nodded. Both Clint and his interpreter then left the classroom. "Anyone else want to leave the classroom?" He asked. "Good. Now, you may or may not know that next Friday is the day of the Fourth Grade Science Fair. I'm going out on a limb and saying that a a result of what happened, you actually don't know. So you will have until then to build your projects and I want you to come up with one today, ideally. So get into your groups and get started."

Tony and Bruce immediately turned to each other. "I got this idea actually, Bruce." Tony nodded. "I came up with it over the weekend." He pulled blueprints out of his backpack. "It's a Get Well Robot and I came up with the idea for Phil."

"What does it do?" Bruce asked, looking at the blueprints.

"Like a nurse. It looks after you." Tony shrugged. "Only it's a robot."

"Can you build it in time for the science fair?" Bruce asked.

"Sure." Tony nodded. "With you and Ant Man helping, I think we can get it done by next Tuesday." He grinned.

On the other side of the room, Thor was sitting with Sif, Darcy and Jane.

"I know I can build this." Jane frowned.

"But it looks difficult." Thor whined.

"It's a baking soda volcano." Darcy rolled her eyes.

"With a control panel." Jane pointed out.

"Indeed. That looks like it will prove to be very difficult." Thor pouted.

Sif sighed. "Man up, Thor." She shook her head.

At the back of the classroom Nick was with Maria.

"So if Natasha and Clint say yes, we're building a model solar system?" Maria asked.

"Yeah." Nick nodded. "That's a big if though."

"You're telling me." Maria snorted. "If they say no, what should we do?"

"A presentation on everything wrong with the latest Mighty Avengers movie." Nick suggested.

Maria pondered over it briefly. "Sure. That could work." She said. "There aren't usually people with suits of armor about and that would cost a fortune, the one Armored Man has."

"Probably all of America's GDP." Nick shook his head.

"Quadruple Nigeria's." Maria whispered loudly.

"Why are you whispering, Maria?" Nick asked.

"So nobody hears our awesome science project plans." She grinned.

* * *

That evening, Tony and Bruce went to Hank's house with their robot blueprints safely in hand. Bruce knocked on the door and Hank's mother answered it.

"Hello, Mrs Pym." Bruce nodded politely. "May we please see Hank, it's regarding schoolwork."

"You may, Bruce, Tony." She nodded in acknowledgement. "Hank's up in his room. He's still in shock after what happened with..." She trailed off.

"It shook us all up, Mrs Pym. None of us were expecting it." Tony said, sadly.

"But this might cheer him up a bit." Bruce held up Tony's plans. "It's for the 4th grade science fair."

"Hank loves science." She smiled, fondly. "Like I said, he's in his room." She stepped to the side to let the boys pass.

"Thanks, Mrs Pym!" The boys said in unison as they walked inside.

"Doris!" A man called out. "Doris! Have you seen my..." The man trailed off when he saw Bruce and Tony. "Hey, kids. Hank's in his room."

"Brad, what is it you're looking for?" Hank's mother Doris asked.

"Just my other shoe." Hank's father Brad replied.

"It should be over..." Doris began.

"Come on." Tony nodded. "Let's just go find Hank." Tony and Bruce walked over to Hank's room and knocked the door.

"Hank?" Bruce asked. "Hank?" There was no answer. Bruce opened the door and they walked into Hank's room. Hank's bedroom looked mature for his age. There were discarded inventions in one corner of the room, a current project in the center, many ant farms lining the shelves and posters of famous scientists as well as a globe and a map of the world poster, hanging up by the list of ant facts Hank had written out.

Hank was sitting on his bed, staring into one of his multiple ant farms.

"Go away." He said, sadly.

"Hank, the science fair's coming up." Tony said.

"I'll just do a presentation on my ants again." Hank shrugged.

"Okay, because Bruce and I thought you might want to get in on this." Tony walked further inside the room and dumped the robot blueprints on Hank's bed.

Hank picked them up."What _is_ this, Tony?"

"It's blueprints for a Get Well Robot." Tony explained.

"A robot nurse." Bruce nodded. "We thought it could help Phil."

"Coulson?" Hank asked, sounding more interested.

"Do we know any other Phils?" Tony quipped.

"How will we even power it?" Hank asked. "You'd need a big battery for something like this."

Tony tapped the glowing circle in the center of his chest. "Arc reactor. It'll run off an arc reactor." He said happily. "My dad's got blueprints in his workshop. I can build that there and the rest of the robot we can build here or at Bruce's."

"You've got this worked out, haven't you, Tony?"

"Of course I have." Tony declared proudly. "Can't have it running on ant power!"

* * *

**A/N: Oh dear. Can you tell what's about to happen? Let that sense of doom wash over you because something will be happening next chapter. Something terrible. Something... Evil. **

**I don't own any of the characters, Marvel do.**


	14. Science Fair Part II

A week before the science fair, the three kids stood in Hank's garage around a half built robot.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Bruce asked. "Turning Ultron on?"

"When are robots never a good idea, Bruce?" Tony asked.

"Well... Terminator, for one. The last Mighty Avengers movie." Bruce pointed out.

"We're not the Mighty Avengers now, are we?" Tony smirked as he powered the robot on. "Besides, this thing hasn't even got arms and legs yet. It's just a body."

Ultron whirred.

"This thing is gonna cure AIDS!" Tony chuckled.

"Well, maybe it's just going to win us the science fair." Hank said. "What else can a robot with no arms and legs do?" He stood in front of Ultron. "Isn't that right?"

"_Da-da_..."

"What?" The three looked around at each other and shrugged.

Ultron buzzed again. "_Da-da... Want Da-da_..."

"Tony..." Hank looked nervously at the robot.

"Depower it. We'll figure out what to do with it before the science fair." Tony said.

"I got a horrible feeling about this." Bruce shook his head and went to unplug Ultron. His jaw dropped when he saw Ultron wasn't plugged in. "Hank! Tony!"

"Did you unplug the robot, Bruce?" Hank asked.

"_No need to plug me in, Daddy_..." The robot said.

"The robot thinks your its father, Hank!" Tony chuckled.

"_I'm alive, just like you are_..." Ultron let out a shrill blast of noise, forcing the three kids to cover their ears.

"What's going on?!" Hank shouted. Ultron fired a repulsor blast at Hank, forcing him to jump for cover.

"_Hold still, Dad! Don't you know I want to play with you_?" Ultron fired another blast.

"Crap! What do we do?!" Tony shouted.

"I told you this was a bad idea!" Bruce whined.

Tony dodged another blast from Ultron to pick up a red and gold metallic gauntlet.

"Tony!" Hank screamed as Ultron his him with a blast.

"Hank!" Tony shouted.

"This is bad!" Bruce shook his head.

"_You are down, father dear_!" Ultron said, almost with glee. "_But not yet out_."

"Not... Your... Father." Hank choked out.

"_However you soon shall be when my next ultro blast hurls you into eternal oblivion_!"

"This isn't good!" Bruce grabbed Tony. "Ultron's gonna kill Hank!"

"I'm trying, Bruce! There's only so fast I can work!" Tony grunted in frustration as he fitted the gauntlet on his hand.

"_Your destruction is inevitable, father, you cannot resist me_!" Ultron shouted.

"Tony!" Bruce whined.

"Yeah, I got it!" Tony held out his hand and blasted the robot to the other side of the room. "There, that ought to have stopped it now."

Hank got on all fours, and tried to regain his breath. "Bruce, I need my Pym particles, maybe I can..." He was cut off by another blast from Ultron.

"Dammit! He was just charging up another blast!" Tony growled.

"_Changing size won't help you, father, nothing will!_" Ultron cackled. "_On the day you created me, you sealed your own irreversible doom_!"

"At least it's just Hank that Ultron's mad at..." Tony rubbed the back of his neck.

"Irreversible doom-for God's sake, Tony! Do something!" Bruce pushed Tony closer to the robot.

"Why me?"

"Because I said that this would be a horrible idea!" Bruce snarled as Ultron fired a beam at Hank.

"Oh God, I'm gonna die!" Hank wailed.

"_No, my fallen father-figure_."

Tony and Bruce exchanged glances as Hank cried out in pain.

"_For it would be far too simple, not worthy of my consummate genius_!"

"Bruce, go and get help!" Tony begged.

"Gladly!" Bruce ran out of Hank's garage, leaving Tony and Hank with the evil robot.

"Hank! Watch out!" Tony called out, blasting the robot, this time depowering it.

Hank fell to the ground, almost crying. "I never want to do that again. Never."

"It's over now."

"We created an evil robot, Tony." Hank said. "We _can't_ bring it to the science fair."

"So use your Pym Particles..."

"They're supposed to be secret!" Hank hissed loudly. "Nobody knows about them but Principal Xavier, Bruce and you and the rest of superhero club."

"Superpower training."

"What good did it do me with Ultron?" Hank sat up and cleaned his glasses. "None at all."

"Hey, we're only ten, I think we did really well..."

"But not good enough." Hank sighed, putting his glasses on.

"Hank are you okay? Tony?" Gabe Jones, Hank's neighbor asked, entering the garage with Bruce.

"Fine, Mr Jones. I just... We created an evil robot. It's over now." Hank said.

"Are any of you hurt?"

"Just my pride." Tony answered.

"Then it could have been a lot worse. You're all okay. Just no more evil robots." Gabe helped Hank up. "How did you even make an evil robot anyway?"

"The science fair's coming up. We wanted to impress."

"Next time, just stick to a baking soda volcano." Gabe chuckled. "Need me to watch over anything until your parents come home?"

"Yeah, can you just stay with us?" Hank asked. "You were in the army. You can help us if Ultron comes back online."

"If it makes you feel more secure, sure. I'll stay and let your parents know that you were attacked by your science fair project. That turned sentient and went evil."

"It sounds weird, doesn't it?" Tony asked.

"Well, you three kids, Reed and T'Challa are the smartest kids I know of. If anyone could build a sentient, evil robot, it'd be one of you kids."

"So what now?" Hank asked.

"Baking soda volcano it is." Bruce shrugged.

* * *

**A/N: This is set after chapter 4 of Kid Cable and Kid Deadpool. **

**Gabe Jones is one of the Howling Commandos. He's the neighbor of Hank Pym and the friend of Nick Fury Sr. **

**Ultron's happened. Or should that be Ultron's happening. Ultron's dialogue was pretty much taken from Avengers #58, albeit with a completely different set of circumstances and Bruce and Tony are there and share dialogue. It's somewhat a mix of the 616 and the MCU. But with kids. Like Skottie Young then. Just imagine it all Skottie Young drawn. **

**Also, superhero club? Who else are members...?**

**I don't own any of the Marvel characters that appear. **


	15. Science Fair Part III

"Okay class!" Principal Xavier said loudly. "Settle down! Settle down!"

Everyone all came to a hush.

"Good. Now, I know this class is highly unorthodox and I am quite probably the only person who teaches it, but I believe you all must learn to control your superpowers. This is why today, there will be a new student joining our class. His name is Nathan Summers."

Nathan shuffled into the room and gave a small wave with his bionic arm.

"Are you kidding me?" Tony raised an eyebrow.

"No, Tony, I am not kidding you." Principal Xavier said sternly. "Now, would everyone like to go around the room and tell Nathan a bit about your powers? Tony, you can go first."

"You know me, I'm Tony Stark, the genius son of Howard Stark." Tony said, begrudgingly. "My powers are all technological based. It's a suit of armor powered by my arc reactor."

"I'm Skye and I can uh... Cause earthquakes." Skye said with a shrug. "I was thrown out of Stan Lee Elementary because my powers awakened and I may have destroyed some stuff. Okay. A whole building wing. I'm an Inhuman. Yeah. _That_ Inhuman."

"I'm Kamala." Kamala said brightly. "I can stretch and change shape and do cool things. I'm Inhuman too. Oh and I heal quick when I get hurt."

"I'm Howard the Duck and I'm a duck." Howard folded his arms.

"He's actually an alien duck from another planet." Principal Xavier added.

"I'm Rocket, I'm a Raccoon. But I'm not an alien. I'm a lab experiment that someone thought would be a fun idea." Rocket rolled his eyes.

"I'm Doreen." Doreen smiled. "This here is Monkey Joe, my best friend." She said, pointing to a squirrel on her shoulder. "I don't know if I'm an Inhuman or a mutant, but I'm half squirrel. Like, I can talk to squirrels and climb trees and stuff."

_Clint, would you like to tell Nathan about yourself_? Principal Xavier signed.

Clint nodded. "Uh... I'm Clint. And I'm just really good with a bow and arrow. That's it. Also, I'm Deaf. I can't hear like... Anything."

"Okay. I'm Lorna. I'm a mutant and I can control electromagnetism. Basically like telekinesis, but with metal." Lorna shrugged. "My dad can do it too, so he's teaching me. Still he insisted I take superhero lessons."

"I'm Matt. I'm blind. But I have powers of echolocation. Not really powers. But I'm training to use it. Echolocation is basically using noise to sort of see the world around me." Matt explained. "I wasn't born blind though. I had an accident."

"I'm Hank. With technology I can shrink myself down to ant size and I get super strength to fight big people." Hank said. "I can also spy on people and create evil robots bent on killing me."

"What the hell, Hank?!" Tony growled. "You said you'd forget about it!"

"And he shall under my class." Principal Xavier said.

"You already know me as your assistant librarian, but I'm Toro and I'm also assisting this class as well as learning about my fire based powers and flight from Charles-Principal Xavier here." Toro gave a nod and a smile.

"Uh okay." Nathan looked down. "I'm Nathan. I'm a mutant. And I have telekinesis." He shrugged.

"So what's up with that white hair then?" Doreen asked.

Nathan shrugged. "I think it's connected to my mutation."

"Oh. Cool." Doreen nodded.

"Okay, Nathan, what's going to happen is that you will train alongside everyone here, they will be your team." Principal Xavier explained. "You will learn about your powers and yourself as you learn to control them."

"I don't understand..." Nathan frowned.

"Nathan, you and your team will likely go on to change the world." Principle Xavier said.

"But there's no bad guys." Nathan said.

"That you know of." Lorna chuckled.

"Plus one of us could easily pull an Anakin Skywalker since y'know, we're like Principal Xavier's padawans." Tony shrugged.

"Tony, I hope that wasn't a threat."

"No, Sir." Tony shook his head.

"Okay, good. But just for that little outburst, you can go first."

"Not fair." Tony grumbled, pulling on his helmet.

* * *

"So I heard you had superhero training today." Wade folded his arms. "Why didn't you invite me?"

"Because you don't have superpowers yet, Wade." Nathan replied.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa-_yet_?" Wade chuckled. "What do you mean, _yet_?"

"You're either a mutant or an Inhuman, Wade."

"How do you know that?"

"Principal Xavier."

"He told you?"

"No, I used my telekinetic abilities to root through his stuff." Nathan admitted.

"So you think I have powers? That I'm a mutant or an Inhuman?"

"Well it was either those two or MENSA level intelligence. He didn't know whether I was a mutant or an Inhuman."

"What makes you think I'm not in MENSA?" Wade asked.

"You're bright, but not _that_ bright."

"Oh and _you_ are?"

"No, I'm a mutant, Wade. I can make your brain explode with my telekinesis." Nathan said.

"That's so attractive." Wade muttered.

"What?"

"I said it's awesome. But it's almost like someone is out there writing your life to be as tragic and as awesome as possible." Wade pointed out.

"Tragic... _And_ awesome?" Nathan raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, your life is tragically awesome, wouldn't you agree?" Wade shrugged.

"Wade, I've nearly died _twice_."

"And you got a neat metal arm and superpowers from them."

"You've nearly died too, Wade."

"Yeah, but cancer doesn't give you superpowers." Wade said. "Or does it?"

* * *

Nick Sr opened the front door and Nick Jr and Skye rushed inside.

"Hello?" Nick Sr called out and received no answer. "Nia must be still at Mikel's soccer game." He picked up the mail and looked through it, his heart sinking further with every bill he saw.

"SpongeBob!"

"Phineas and Ferb!"

"SpongeBob!"

"Phineas and Ferb!"

"SpongeBob!"

"Phineas and Ferb!"

"Shut up!" Nick Sr shouted. "Or there'll be no TV tonight for both of you! Go and do your homework!"

* * *

Hank walked home with his hands in his pockets alongside Tony.

"I don't think we should use Ultron." Hank said. "It's stupid to think we could ever build something that could possibly be helpful."

"Phil's gonna be alright, Hank. Mom said he's better. Going home in a few days."

"Yeah, I know. My aunt said the same thing." Hank sighed.

"I think we should try again."

"Wait, no, Tony." Hank shook his head. "No. I'm not going to do that."

"Like a playground monitor that can be everywhere at once."

"Tony..."

"Where nobody gets stabbed in the shoulder on the playground."

"Or gets to play with arrows on the playground."

"Yeah, well that's just Clint, isn't it? He's Deaf. Doesn't have anything else."

"Tony, it's just not a good idea. Ultron tried to vaporize me, the next robot we build just might."

"Hank, stop ruining my vision."

"If your vision is centered around robot security details then you're just asking for an Orwellian future."

"Yeah. That's my vision."

"I'm _not_ building a second robot and that's that." Hank growled as he walked to his garage.

"Come on, Hank. Stop being..."

"Tony, you're immature. I'm 'unstable'-"

"Don't go on what Frank Castle tells you-"

"Well, he's right, Tony, he's..." Hank trailed off. "Where's Ultron?"

"Ultron?"

"Our evil, sentient robot. He's not here."

"Yeah, well, your mom and dad probably threw him out." Tony shrugged. "He _was_ broken after all."

"I guess if Ultron's gone, then there's no harm in trying to build another robot. But Tony, this time we keep it simple."

* * *

On the day of the science fair, everyone was setting up their projects from baking soda volcanoes and papier-mâché solar systems to presentations about the faults in the latest Mighty Avengers movie and even a tribute to past scientific accomplishments.

Hank was standing nervously at his booth when Tony approached him casually.

"Where's the new robot?" Hank asked.

"I thought you had it?" Tony frowned.

"Maybe Bruce has it." Hank said, trying to convince himself that nothing was wrong.

When Bruce walked up to the booth empty handed, Hank began to panic.

"Where's the robot?" Bruce asked.

"I don't know!" Hank pulled at his hair. "What if he's gone evil?!"

"Hank, I doubt it." Tony said.

"It was a terrible idea!" Hank wailed. "We should never have built the bastard thing in the first place!"

"Okay everyone!" Principal Xavier announced. "The judging of the science fair will kick off shortly. Please ensure that your project is ready to present! The judges shall be myself, Mr Selvig, Dr Von Doom and Howard Stark, who has kindly taken time away from his inventing schedule for this event."

"Shit." Tony muttered under his breath.

"That is all, thank you."

"We're done for. We're _really_ done for." Hank shook his head.

"I-it can't be as bad as it looks." Bruce said. "Hank, go check your garage again-Tony and I'll try to stall."

Hank nodded and rushed out of the gymnasium where the science fair was being held. Mr Selvig walked up to Tony and Bruce.

"What's wrong with Hank, there?" He asked.

"He-" Bruce began.

"He really had to pee." Tony said.

Bruce nodded.

Mr Selvig raised an eyebrow but nodded anyway. "Alright. Make sure your project is ready to present within the next five minutes." He walked away.

Phil walked over to the two with his left arm in a sling. "Hey." He greeted. "What was Mr Selvig doing here?"

"Phil?" Tony raised an eyebrow. "You're okay?"

"Well, kinda. But I wouldn't miss the science fair. Tony, you look like you've seen a ghost. What's the matter?"

"I think we've made a terrible mistake." Bruce muttered.

"A mistake?" Phil frowned. "Guys, what's happened?"

"We built a robot to help you-" Tony began.

"But it turned evil!" Bruce whined.

"Evil?" Phil asked.

"And we built another one." Tony said.

"Which has gone missing." Bruce sighed. "Hank's gone to look for it."

"But we're all secretly thinking it's turned evil too." Tony blurted out.

"How evil are you talking about?" Phil asked. "Like Terminator evil or..."

"Terminator evil." Bruce and Tony said without hesitation.

"Yikes." Phil winced. "That's... Not good."

"We know." Tony said.

"That's why Hank's looking for it." Bruce added.

"Hey, guys!" Janet said happily, skipping over to Tony, Bruce and Phil. "Hey, Phil, glad you're better."

"Janet." Tony said with a nod.

"So what are you guys doing?" Janet asked.

"Nothing that concerns you, Janet." Bruce said.

"Come oooon guys. It's me, your classmate, Janet Van Dyne!"

"Saying your full name isn't making us want to tell you our project any more than before." Tony said.

"Poo." Janet huffed.

"Attention everyone-the judging of the Science Fair will now begin! Once again, the judges shall be myself, Mr Selvig, Dr Von Doom and inventor Howard Stark." Principal Xavier announced.

"That's it. We're screwed." Tony said with a sigh.

"There is nothing you can do to stay your fate." A voice said.

Both Tony and Bruce stiffened.

"I'm not looking." Bruce said.

"Fine, I'll look." Tony turned around slowly and saw a small robot, about their size, but with a green body and a red face. It was wearing yellow gloves, boots, shorts and cape. It also had a yellow diamond on his chest and a yellow jewel or something lodged in his head. The robot was coming up from the floor

"Oh my god." Janet covered her mouth. "It's like some sort of inhuman vision."

"We're double screwed." Tony paled.

"What the hell _is_ that?" Phil asked, the panic evident in his voice. "I've been attacked once, I don't want to be attacked again!"

Hank came rushing through the gym door and to the small group. "Guys, I couldn't find the robot-holy shit it's our robot." He let out a breath of relief. "Who found it?"

"It found us, Hank." Bruce said ominously. "It found us."

"On the contrary, Hank Pym." The robot began.

"Holy shit, it knows your name." Tony said lowly.

"Tony Stark." The robot said.

"And yours." Hank said, just as lowly.

"And Bruce Banner. I was sent to destroy you. And destroy you I shall!" The robot got into stance and a destructive beam flew from its eyes, causing the kids to scatter.

* * *

On the other side of the gym, Clint, Natasha, Maria and Nick were waiting at their booth. The robot fighting caught Clint's eye.

"Guys, look over there." He pointed to the robot and its laser eyes.

"What the..." Nick frowned and squinted, wondering if what he was seeing was real. "It's not just me, right? That's totally an evil robot."

"Definitely." Maria agreed.

"Great. We live in a world with evil terrorist robots now. Can't wait until ISIS get their hands on that." Natasha rolled her eyes and folded her arms.

Logan walked over to them. "That's not just me, is it?"

Everyone but Clint shook their heads. Nick translated for Clint, who then shook his head.

"Oh no, that's an evil robot, Logan. Definitely an evil robot." Clint said.

"Should we do something about it?" Logan asked.

"Like what? We're all kids. You're smaller than the rest of us as well." Natasha said.

"Hey, isn't that Scott Summers' brother?" Nick asked, pointing at Nathan Summers, now joining the fray with the robot.

"Holy shit." Clint muttered. Nathan lifted the robot with his telekinetic abilities and threw it across the gym. "Scatter!" He shouted and all the kids dived out of the way. The robot ended up crashing into their project.

Clint poked the robot with his shoe. "I think it's dead." He said.

Hank, Tony, Bruce, Janet, Phil and Nathan all came running over.

"Hey, I see you met our science project." Hank smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck.

"What... _Is_ that?" Nick asked.

"That is a uh..." Hank shrugged. "A robot."

"Is everyone okay?" Everyone turned to the voice and sighed in relief. It was only T'Challa, an older student.

"Everyone's fine, T'Challa." Maria answered.

"Then does someone mind explaining what this thing is?" T'Challa asked, pointing to the robot.

T'Challa asked something and pointed to the robot. Clint shrugged and turned to Natasha.

_He asked if one of us could tell us about the robot_. She signed.

Clint nodded. "It's a synthezoid."

T'Challa opened his mouth and said something with a puzzled facial expression. From context, Clint could tell that he was confused. Probably asked what he meant by synthezoid.

"I remember Hank was working on synthezoids back in September. He wanted something scary for Halloween." Clint explained. Talking without being able to hear it was certainly a weird sensation. Though Clint was used to it by now, it was still a little odd to him. "So he started making synthetic skin and then wondered if he could make other synthetic organs. I guess he succeeded with this." He pointed to the robot.

T'Challa turned to Hank. More talking. More pointing at the robot.

Hank replied and pressed his hands together in a pleading gesture.

T'Challa shook his head and pointed at the robot. Then at Hank. And back at the robot.

Hank hung his head and shook it.

Clint could tell that T'Challa was shouting, he could make out some words, but they still sounded like he was underwater.

"And get rid of that-that synthezoid thing!" T'Challa said.

"Will do." Hank nodded.

T'Challa walked away, shaking his head, while Principal Xavier and Dr Von Doom approached them.

Dr Von Doom always intimidated the kids with his weird Latverian dress sense. He'd always wear cloaks and never in the Dumbledore sense. More like he was planning to overthrow the president of Latveria to become the dictator. The way he stood with his arms folded, looking at everyone else in contempt only backed up the kids' theory. And that scar on his face didn't help his case, then again, neither did his last name.

"I couldn't help but notice what you kids have done." Principal Xavier said as Dr Von Doom stood ominously behind him. "You kids-specifically you, Nathan-were fighting with someone. Should I send you to Mr Jameson?"

"I wasn't fighting with anyone, Sir, I saved everyone from this evil robot with laser eyes." Nathan pointed at the robot.

"Nathan Summers, I did not expect you of all people to tell lies." Dr Von Doom said. That creepy Latverian accent paired with a murderous look in his eye... Why on god's green earth was he teaching music to children?!

"I'm not lying, Dr Von Doom. It-that-it's an evil robot." Nathan said.

"Who built this?" Principal Xavier asked.

"Hank did!" Everyone except Nathan pretty much shouted.

"Hank... Did you _really_ build this?" Principal Xavier asked quietly.

Hank nodded sheepishly. "Yes, well... Bruce and Tony helped. I was trying to make something helpful, not evil."

"This is amazing." Principal Xavier said under his breath. "Victor, get Howard and Erik over here. They have to see this."

Dr Von Doom gave a nod and walked over to the two other scientists. The robot sat up rubbing its head and the kids shouted in surprise. Some of them backed away.

"I recall who created me." It said calmly.

"Okay. Not creepy at all." Nick said.

"And it was not you, Hank Pym." The robot said.

"Yes it was." Hank said. "I created you. I built you."

"But you did not give me life." The robot said. "The one who gave me life was a metal being called Ultron."

Hank paled. "Ultron? You sure?"

"Most definitely." The robot nodded.

"Hang on, what's an Ultron?" Logan asked.

"The first robot I built for the science fair." Hank explained. "He gained sentience and turned evil."

"He tried to vaporize Hank, so..." Tony shrugged.

"I thought Mom and Dad threw him out." Hank said. "But he's out there somewhere. Being evil. Sending my own creations after me."

"Perhaps I am what Janet Van Dyne called me-a vision."

"Oh man, it knows my name." Janet said, backing away uneasily.

"I know all of your names." The robot said.

"Yep. That's creepy as hell." Maria nodded.

"Actually, Maria Hill, it is not as 'creepy' as one might think."

"Hank, get rid of the creepy evil robot that knows my name." Maria said.

"I am not evil." The robot said as it stood up. "I am not good. I do not know what I am."

Dr Von Doom returned with Howard Stark and Mr Selvig.

"Is this it, Victor? The robot?" Mr Selvig asked.

"Yes, I am the robot. It is a pleasure to meet you, Erik Selvig." The robot put its gloved hand out politely.

"Oh damn, it knows my name." Mr Selvig hesitantly shook the robot's much smaller hand.

"It knows many things." Principal Xavier said. "Apparently I made the right decision when I accepted Hank Pym, Bruce Banner and your son into my school, Howard, because your son had a hand in building this."

"He did?" Howard asked, examining the robot.

"That's amazing. Three eleven year olds building such a sophisticated robot." Mr Selvig said, in awe.

"Actually, I'm ten." Hank corrected.

"Yes, yes, even more amazing." Mr Selvig nodded. "I don't think I'll ever see anything this amazing again in my lifetime."

"Then I think it's unanimous." Dr Von Doom said with that creepy voice of his. "Hank Pym, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark get first place in the science fair."

"Wow, that was fairly anticlimactic." Hank said.

"Do you not want your prize?" Howard asked.

"Oh no, I do." Hank said with a nod. "I do."

"What do we call your robot then?" Mr Selvig asked.

Hank opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the robot.

"You may call me... Vision."

* * *

The following Monday, Erik entered his class. Everyone was there, even Phil Coulson. And he had a new student.

"Good morning class, I have a few announcements today. First, I'd like to introduce you to your new classmate, Vision." He gestured to the robot sitting in the corner, who turned and waved at everyone. "Yes, he _is_ an android, but I don't want any excuses for treating him like he isn't human. Treat him as you do Howard the Duck and Rocket Raccoon." He said.

"Second, the student body president elections are coming up. Who would like to run?"

Almost everyone looked away while only two hands shot in the air.

"Anybody else?" Erik asked. "No? Okay. Our two nominees are... Steve Rogers and Tony Stark."

* * *

**A/N: That's right. I'm doing Civil War. This will tie into the companion fic-Kid Cable and Kid Deadpool, so watch out for that too.**

**I introduced Vision into this because I wanted to. I love Vision and he's going to be there from now on. I also introduced music teacher Doctor Doom, because why not? In the Jack Kirby days, Doctor Doom simply had a scar on his face but he was self conscious and covered it up with a mask. This is that Doctor Doom, minus the mask.**

**Also... Ms Marvel, Howard the Duck, Squirrel Girl and Polaris! Aww yeah! I also loved the idea of a long standing superhero club where Xavier taught them to control their powers and just like in the first chapter how Sam gets introduced to this craziness, I thought hey, I'll introduce Nathan to this craziness. By the way, there'll be some more Sam soon. **

**Stay tuned!**

**Excelsior!**

**Wait, that was too much wasn't it? Ah well. **


	16. Civil War Part I

Steve sat at a table that lunchtime, drawing out designs for his student campaign. Sam brought his tray down on the table and took a seat next to Steve. Bucky, Clint, Phil, Logan and Stephen followed.

"Decided on your platform?" Sam asked.

Steve nodded. "Yeah. Remember the whole incident with Phil getting stabbed through the shoulder?"

"How could I forget?" Phil asked sarcastically.

"Remember when they said Loki could be more?"

Bucky nodded. "Yeah, I remember that rumour."

"Well, it's true. I saw it at the science fair. That Nathan Summers can move stuff with his mind."

"Scott Summers' brother?" Logan asked gruffly, raising an eyebrow. He put his fork back into his food. "What do you mean he moves stuff with his mind?"

"I mean he can _telekinetically_ move objects with his mind with his _telekinetic_ powers that he uses because he has _telekinesis_." Steve said.

"Students here have powers?" Stephen asked.

"Yeah." Steve nodded.

"I'm friends with a girl." Bucky said. "She goes here and she has powers. She wouldn't want me to say who she is but... Yeah. She has powers."

"Exactly. If you have superpowers, chances are you don't want to be outed. Tony wants these kids to have to say to the entire school who they are and what their powers are and I don't think that's cool. So I'm running on the basis that they get to stay anonymous."

Clint looked to Phil who gave a rough translation in ASL. Clint nodded and signed back.

"Steve, Clint would like to talk to you in private in a little bit." Phil said quietly.

Clint nodded.

"Okay." Steve nodded back. "Now what does everyone think of the idea?"

"It's... Interesting." Logan shrugged.

"I also want more money for iPads for learning. And I want the bathrooms cleaned more regularly. That Kraven is really slacking off lately." Steve shook his head.

"You know, I haven't seen him in a while." Bucky put a forkful of mac and cheese in his mouth.

"I heard from Hank who heard from his aunt that he was off on a hunting trip." Stephen said.

"Hmm. I believe that." Steve nodded. "Hank's aunt is usually right about these things."

"What things?" Sam asked.

"Everything!" Steve chuckled.

"Oh, she's a busybody alright." Phil chuckled.

"But if Kraven's gone hunting, why can't the other janitors handle it?" Sam asked.

"Have you _met_ our other janitors?" Bucky asked.

"Anton Vanko is constantly thinking he's above janitorial duties." Stephen said.

"And I'm pretty sure that Johann Schmidt is some kind of Neo-Nazi." Logan said.

"Come on, Logan, just because he's German..."

"No, it's because I've heard him spouting things about the Third Reich."

"Yeah, Steve, I've heard it too." Bucky agreed.

"Maybe I'll run on the platform to fire Johann Schmidt too, then." Steve scribbled something down on the paper.

* * *

On the other side of the room, Tony was sitting with Rhodey, Bruce, Hank and an interested Carol. He was casually drawing on an iPad using a rubber stylus.

"What _are_ you doing, Tony?" Carol asked.

"Trying to make a totally awesome campaign poster." Tony snorted.

"You're sounding like Amadeus Cho." Bruce said.

"Who? That kindergartener?" Tony chuckled. "Pfft. No way."

"Yeah way. Kid's a genius." Rhodey shrugged.

"A lot of us are, here. All of us at this table-minus Carol."

"Hey!" Carol protested.

"T'Challa, Reed, Rick, Stephen... That other kindergartener. The little girl." Tony carried on.

"You mean Moon Girl, right?" Hank asked.

"Yeah, but what's her _real_ name?" Tony asked.

"Lunella Lafayette." Carol supplied.

"Yeah. That's it." Tony put his stylus down. "Well, I'm done." He held up his design to the rest of the table, who growled around to look. "What do you think?"

"Uh..." Rhodey rubbed the back of his neck. "Well..."

"It's a gun shooting guns on the backdrop of the American flag." Carol said bluntly.

"Can't forget the robot ants with laser vision." Bruce pointed out.

"Ants don't have laser vision, Tony, they-" Hank began.

"Tomayto tomahto." Tony shrugged.

"It's definitely _busy_, Tony." Rhodey said. "Try toning it down a bit?"

"Okay, what?" Tony put the tablet down.

"Maybe the killer giant ants with laser vision." Hank suggested irritatedly.

"And the guns shooting guns." Bruce added.

"You just don't like me to have any fun, do you?" Tony huffed.

"Maybe you should, I dunno, talk about what you want to do for the school?" Rhodey suggested.

"I've already decided-it's in the crude poster design." Tony held up the tablet again. "See?"

"All I'm seeing is guns and giant laser-eyed ants." Hank said.

"No, see, it's in the cafeteria. The kids running away in fear have been eating salad!" Tony smiled.

"I-I don't... Get it?" Bruce shrugged and shook his head.

Tony huffed. "Healthy meals?"

"Maybe you should make that a bit more clear." Carol said.

"I did. How clearer can it be than _salad_?" Tony grunted. "I also think that after the whole... Ultron-Vision thing and Loki that maybe it's a good idea for kids who have powers to maybe... Tell the school they have them. That way, no students almost get killed again."

"You know what, Tony, that's actually a good idea." Bruce nodded. "I'm behind that."

"So am I. That's surprisingly... Mature of you, Tony." Carol said.

"Well, Phil's my friend. I just want to help. I mean, I couldn't help him the first time, so maybe I can help him by restraining myself and preventing others from suffering the same fate. Maybe worse." Tony shrugged.

"Well, I'm behind you too, Tony." Hank said.

"Really?" Tony asked. "Thanks, Hank. Thanks, Bruce. Thanks, Carol." He turned to Rhodey.

"Tony, man, you're my best friend. I'm behind almost everything you do. I'm behind this too. I support you for student body president." Rhodey said with a nod.

"Guys, you're _not_ going to regret this." Tony said excitedly. "I swear, only good can come from this. We gotta... We gotta get out there! Hand out 'Vote for Tony' fliers! Campaign!" He gasped sharply and looked at his friends. "You guys are gonna be my campaign team! Go on! Spread the word that people should be voting for Tony!" He shouted so loudly that his voice reverberated from the walls of the relatively large cafeteria.

"Tony!" Rhodey hissed.

Tony looked around and realised that the kids were staring at him. He also found himself on top of a table, his left foot in a tray full of mashed potatoes. "Oop. Sorry." He climbed down sheepishly and took a seat once again.

* * *

During afternoon recess, both Tony and Steve were busy convincing other students to vote for them.

"Vote Steve!" Steve said to everyone that passed by. "Vote Steve! Vote Steve! Vote-"

"That's _not_ how you get votes, Rogers."

Steve turned to the voice. Jessica Jones. She was standing in front of him with her left hand on her hip.

"I know, Jessica, I just... I wanted to get a head start on Tony. He's doing the same right now, I'm sure." Steve said.

"What do you stand for?" Jessica asked.

"Uh... iPads for learning, superpower anonymity and better janitors-preferably ones that aren't lazy or Neo-Nazis or go away for weeks on long hunting trips."

"You're referring to Kraven, right?" Jessica asked. "Yeah, my adoptive mom heard about it from Hank's aunt."

"_Everyone_ knows Hank's aunt." Steve nodded.

"Sounds like a decent manifesto though." Jessica said. "But you need a campaign manager. That's where _I_ can help."

"Really? How?" Steve asked sceptically.

"Well, by making 'Vote for Steve' pins." Jessica said. "I mean, my adoptive dad works with a 3D printer."

"That sounds cool. Hey, I made a neat design too." Steve took a small piece of paper from his pocket to show Jessica. It was circular shaped with a red circle, then a white circle, then another red circle, then a blue circle with a white star in the center. "I based it on the American flag."

"Of course you did, Captain America." Jessica said sarcastically. She rolled her eyes and took the piece of paper. "Look, I'll do what I can. No guarantees. But I'll spread the word."

"Thanks Jessica." Steve smiled.

"Regretting my decision already." Jessica muttered, putting her hands in her pockets and walking away.

* * *

Wade skipped over to Tony.

"Wade." Tony greeted.

"I heard that you and Steve are the only dudes running for student body president." Wade said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "That true?"

"Yep."

"You need a running mate?" Wade asked.

"No. And if I did, it wouldn't be you." Tony said. "For starters, you're in the third grade, I'm in the fourth."

"And?" Wade cocked his head.

"Yes, Wade, I could go on." Tony said boredly.

"Penis." Wade said out of nowhere.

"_Excuse_ me?" Tony raised his eyebrows.

"I forgot." Wade chuckled. "Hey, hey, did you hear the one about the dick and the other dick? Answer, it's you and Steve!"

"That made _no_ sense, Wade." Tony rolled his eyes.

"What about Chewbacca?" Wade asked.

"Wade, shut up." Tony said.

"Hey, what shit do you pledge to change?"

"I want healthier food and I want everyone with powers to come out and say they have them. It'll make everyone safer in the long run." Tony said with a nod.

"I know someone with powers!" Wade shouted.

"I know you do, Wade." Tony said through gritted teeth.

"His powers are big. And if he didn't have them, people would be safer?"

"That's the idea, Wade, now if you pledge to vote for me and get out of my sight right _now_, I'll make you a hall monitor if I win."

"That's reason enough to vote for you!" Wade smiled and skipped away again.

* * *

The next day, Steve had printed out several campaign fliers. They were similar to the old Uncle Sam World War II posters, but they said 'Vote Steve' at the bottom along with his campaign manifesto.

He was pinning them up on the walls along the hall when Nathan Summers approached him.

"Nathan Summers, I'm busy campaigning. Tell me what you want." Steve said, as he put a flier up on the wall.

"Wade's recruiting people to vote for Tony." Nathan said.

Steve turned to look at Nathan. "Wait, really?"

Nathan nodded. "Look, I know I said I'd vote for you but maybe we should do what Team Tony are doing."

"And that would be what, Nathan?" Steve asked. "Blackmailing people into voting for me? Vote Steve Rogers, get a free cookie?"

"No, Steve, I never said that."

"Then why are you telling me this?"

"I just wanted you to know what we're up against."

"Well, I have more people pledging to vote for me every day. I'm not too worried."

"Sam Wilson, Matt Murdock, Scott Lang, Jessica Jones..."

"They're good people. And they support my cause."

"I support your cause too, Steve, I just think-"

"Listen, I've thought about what you have to say, Nathan and, respectfully, I disagree. You can't change the big picture in a daily struggle." Steve said.

"No, but throughout the course of history, the actions and decisions of individuals-or their non actions-have affected the big picture."

"Nathan, we're both ten years old. Don't get philosophical with me."

"In all fairness, Steve, _you_ started the philosophical debate." Nathan raised an eyebrow. "I believe in you. I believe in your platform."

"So just vote for me." Steve said. "No need to do anything else."

"You need to adapt or you're going to lose the election." Nathan said. "Or the electorate."

"You believe in my cause." Steve said.

"I know some other super powered kids who do too." Nathan said, almost in a low whisper. "Others are on Tony's side-primarily Doreen Green and Hank Pym. You need to swing them."

"I'm running on a platform of super power anonymity." Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know what else I can do."

"I'm trying to keep it low profile about my powers since the Science Fair thing..." Nate whispered. "But I'll do what I can when I can."

Steve nodded. "Voting for me would be better, but yeah. Thanks, Nathan."

Nathan gave a nod and walked away, leaving Steve to put up more fliers.

Steve sighed and went to the campaign table that Bucky and Sam were managing, setting down the fliers. "So Tony's bribing people to vote for him now."

"Tony's doing _what_?" Sam asked in complete disbelief.

"According to Nathan Summers, bribing people to vote for him." Steve shook his head. "Through Wade Wilson."

"People won't _actually_ take him seriously, will they?" Bucky asked. "It's Wade Wilson. He's so immature and severely ADHD-he has to have a teaching assistant help him all the time."

"Yeah, but Clint has one too." Steve pointed out. "Look, I'm gonna go find Wade, talk to him. Convince him to drop the whole bribing people to vote for Tony thing."

"We'll come with you, right, Bucky?" Sam stood up and grabbed his backpack.

"No, Bucky stays here. But you can come, Sam."

"Why do I stay here?" Bucky asked.

"Because you need to hand out fliers and make sure people vote for me in an honest way." Steve walked away with Sam at his side.

* * *

Outside, Tony was standing by his campaign table, handing out fliers with Rhodey and Carol.

Jessica Jones approached them. "What's this?" She asked, snatching a flier from Carol.

"Tony's electoral platform." Carol replied. "The issues he's running for."

"You want kids with powers to just out themselves?" Jessica asked. "That's not right!" She shouted, catching the attention of Jessica Drew.

"Jessica, what's going on?" Jess Drew asked.

"Tony wants whoever here has powers to out themselves." Jessica Jones thrust the flier into Jess Drew's hands.

Jess Drew read the flier, her eyes widening in horror. "Carol! I though you were our friend!" She balled up the paper and threw it at Carol.

"Jess! We are friends, I-"

"I thought you cared about me!" Jess Drew cut across her.

"Carol does care about you, Jess-" Rhodey began.

"I was talking to _Carol_, not _you_, Rhodes." Jess Drew poked Rhodey in the chest. "Stay _out_ of things that don't concern you!"

"Come on, Jess." Jessica Jones said. "I have to get to Steve anyway."

"Whoa, why?" Tony asked, stepping out in front of the Jessicas.

"Because." Jessica Jones replied. "Now get out of my way, pipsqueak."

"Pipsqueak?" Tony shook his head in disbelief.

"You can stay there if you want me to get Luke on you." Jessica Jones shrugged. "Your choice."

Tony stood where he was for a moment before relenting and letting the Jessicas past.

"Thank you." Jessica Jones said sarcastically as she walked away.

"I thought you knew better." Jess Drew quietly said to Carol before following Jessica Jones.

"Well _that_ could have gone better." Rhodey said.

"Definitely. But it looks like we've got another chance. Here comes Nathan Summers." Tony said.

"Nathan Summers?" Carol raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I told Wade he could have a hall monitor job if he votes for me. Probably blabbed on about my position to Nathan. You know how those two are joined at the hip. One will do whatever the other says." Tony shrugged, handing a flier to Nathan as he walked past. Nathan took the flier and tore it in half as he carried on walking.

"Looks like you were wrong this time, Tony." Rhodey chuckled.

"Well, I guess Nathan managed to convince Wade to vote for Steve." Tony frowned.

"Here comes Natasha Romanoff." Carol said, offering a flier to the passing Russian immigrant.

Natasha stopped to look at the flier.

"Vote Tony?" Tony said, but it sounded more like a question.

"What do you mean you want superpowered kids to say that have powers?" Natasha asked. "Shouldn't that be at their discretion?"

"Yeah, but I'm talking about like... You know when Phil was stabbed?" Tony asked.

"Yeah." Natasha nodded.

"And when I recklessly built that evil robot with Hank and Bruce?"

"Where are you going with this?" Natasha asked.

"I just want to stop incidents like that, that might kill kids. Phil could have died, but he luckily didn't. I don't want anything worse than that to happen."

Natasha pondered over what Tony had said before nodding. "Yes. I suppose you're right."

"You mean you'll vote Tony?" Rhodey asked.

"Yes. I'll vote Tony." Natasha confirmed.

* * *

Back inside, Steve and Sam were wandering around, looking for Wade. They came across the two Jessicas who had bumped into Scott Summers.

"Jessicas. Scott." Steve greeted. "You come across Wade Wilson at all?"

"No, but I bet my brother knows where he is." Scott replied.

"By the way, Steve, my dad agreed to make those buttons for you." Jessica Jones said. "Should have them tomorrow.

"Cool." Steve nodded. "Scott, where do we find Nathan?"

"Right here." Nathan slipped out of a classroom.

"Nathan! Don't do that!" Scott slapped his younger brother across the back of the head and Nathan began laughing.

"I just had to put something on Mrs Parker's desk. Mrs Storm told me to do it. Some kind of package." Nathan shrugged.

"So where do we find Wade?" Sam asked.

"That's easy. Just listen to the sound of his annoying Demi Moore voice." Nathan snorted.

"Okay." Steve nodded, stepping forward. "Follow me, then."

The small group began to walk and didn't get very far before they heard what sounded like Wade's voice.

"What do I have to say to convince you?"

"He's near the cafeteria." Nathan said casually. "Just around the corner."

The group rounded the corner and Steve looked on in disgust. Sam moved behind him while Scott looked on in confusion. Jessica Jones and Jessica Drew, meanwhile, folded their arms and stood angrily behind Steve. Wade, however was pleading with Matt Murdock to vote for Tony.

"Well, well. Looks like you were right, Nathan. He's recruiting." Steve folded his arms. "What should we do with him now?"

"Nate?" Wade asked.

"Seems we're on different sides here, Wade." Nathan said, walking forward.

"Yeah. It seems we are." Wade said bitterly, raising his fist to Nathan. Nathan stepped forward and punched Wade in the face with his metal arm.

"You... Punched me." Wade said, holding his nose.

"Oops. My prosthetic slipped." Nathan said sarcastically.

Wade growled and kicked Nathan in the stomach and again in the face when Nathan was doubled over in pain. "Oops. Muscle spasm."

"Steve, what should we...?" Sam began.

"Leave it, Sam. I'm sure it's been a long time coming." Steve watched the two with intrigue.

Wade snarled and pushed Nathan backwards, into the wall.

Nathan breathed heavily and wiped his bleeding mouth. Wade had split his lip with that last kick. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?" He brought himself to his feet. "Bring it on."

"You dare put the Backstreet Boys in my head!" Wade screamed, lunging at Nathan once again.

Nathan kicked Wade in the stomach, knocking him back.

Wade then went to punch Nathan in the face, but Nathan held him still with his telekinesis. Steve looked on in shock. So that's why Nathan was as invested in his campaign as he was. He had powers himself.

"Been a while... Since we last did this... Wade..." Nathan panted. "You were saying... Something about the uh... Backstreet Boys?"

"You're evil, Nathan Summers!" Wade spat out.

"Shut up." Nathan snarled, dropping Wade.

Wade tried again to punch Nathan in the face. This time, he succeeded and there was an audible crack and blood spurted everywhere.

"Nathan!" Scott shouted in panic.

"Ugh." Nathan grunted. "I hate the taste of blood." He said, referring to the blood currently gushing from his nose.

"Yeah, welcome to my world." Wade chuckled as Nathan's metal fist collided into his face.

"Oh my." Sam said as the now-unconscious Wade hit the floor.

"You all saw he went for me first, right?" Nathan asked, pinching his nose.

"He broke your nose!" Scott rushed to his younger brother.

"I'm sure it's not that bad." Nathan said.

"Uh..."

"Your face is black and swollen, Nathan. No way in hell you're getting away with that." Jessica Jones said. "So what do we do with Wade?"

"Duct tape." Nathan panted. "Lots of duct tape. At least one roll for his mouth alone."

"I'll go get the duct tape." Sam offered.

"I'm coming with you." Steve said.

"I guess we'll move the body." Jess Drew said, grabbing Wade under his armpits. "Where to, Steve?"

"Just... I don't know, an empty classroom or something." Steve shrugged.

Jess Drew nodded as Sam and Steve walked off.

"So... That fight was something, right?" Sam asked. "What did you mean by it was a long time coming?"

"They're best friends. But they don't often agree on things. Mostly they keep things civil. But our campaigns, mine and Tony's, has split them. I never thought I'd see the break up of the best buddies."

"So... This has become a civil war?" Sam asked.

"In a way, I guess it has." Steve sighed as they turned a corner. "Civil war. Can't believe it's actually got this far. In a _day_."

"You can't give up, Steve." They stopped at the janitors' office and Sam knocked the door. "Like you said, it's only been a day. Don't let Tony win."

"Don't worry. I don't plan on it." Steve said.

Kraven opened the door. "Can I help you, kids?" He asked, trying to sound nice.

"Oh. Mr Kraven, sir, may we have some duct tape please?" Steve asked, suppressing his surprise that Kraven was back.

"Why you kids need duct tape?" Kraven asked.

"School project." Sam replied.

Kraven huffed, but walked back inside the office. "Fine. You kids can have duct tape. Not like I need it anyway." He went to his desk and rummaged through he drawer.

Sam stepped inside the room, but before he could go further, Steve yanked him back.

"So, Mr Kraven, sir, I heard you've been on a hunting trip. Did you enjoy it?" Sam asked.

"Could have been better." Kraven admitted. He walked back to them with the duct tape. "Here is duct tape. Do whatever you want with it. I don't care." He shut the door in Sam and Steve's faces.

"Well." Steve winced.

"Let's get back to the others." Steve said.

They both ran back to the classroom as Nathan was directing Jessica Jones and Jessica Drew, who were putting Wade in a chair.

"You got the duct tape." Nathan nodded appreciatively and took the tape with his metal hand.

The Jessicas moved away from Wade and let him slump in the chair.

"From Kraven." Sam said.

"Kraven's back?" Nathan asked. "Huh. Hadn't heard anything from mom. Or Hank. Usually his aunt knows _everything_." He peeled the tape and stuck it to Wade's chest and began to walk around and around the chair, taping Wade to it.

"Yeah, I know. Surprised at that one myself." Steve said.

"Then again, remember what I told you?" Nathan ripped the tape and moved to the back of the chair.

"About Hank?" Steve asked.

"Yeah." Nathan said, taping Wade's wrists together. "He's probably not your friend right now."

"What's going on with Hank?" Matt asked.

"He's on Tony's side." Steve said.

"What? Really?" Scott shook his head. "Hmm. Think you know a guy."

With the rest of the tape, Nathan began to tape Wade to the chair again. Unfortunately for Nathan, Wade woke up while Nathan was still duct taping him to a chair.

"What's going on here? How long was I out?" Wade asked.

Nathan checked his watch. "About seven minutes. If that." He replied.

Upon seeing the mess on Nathan's face, Wade smirked. "So I broke your nose, huh? That's funny."

"Yeah, well I duct taped you to a chair. That's _also_ funny." Nathan snapped.

"Great prank and all, Nate, but I gotta go pee." Wade said. "So if you don't mind letting me go-"

"I'm _not_ letting you go."

"How come we have an audience?" Wade asked, referring to Steve, Scott, Sam, Matt and the two Jessicas who were all sitting down at the empty desks.

"Because they helped me move you in here after our fight." Nathan said.

"So why are you doing this, I don't-" Wade paused. "Wait, you're trying to teach me a lesson, aren't you?"

"Actually we were trying to stop you from recruiting my voters." Steve piped up.

"So that's a yes...?"

"Yes, Wade!" Everyone shouted.

"I thought you said he was intelligent?" Jess Drew said.

"He is. But he has his moments of non-intelligence." Nathan replied.

"How do you put up with him?" Sam asked.

"With great difficulty." Nathan sighed, turning back to Wade.

"You can't do this to me! I'm an American!" Wade shouted.

"But you're Canadian." Nathan frowned.

"You can't do this to me! I'm a Canadian!" Wade corrected himself.

"I'm trying to stop you from making a mistake, Wade!" Nathan paced in front of Wade.

"You can't coddle me forever, Nathan!"

"I'm just trying to help!"

"You ruined everything!"

"I didn't ruin anything! You're the one that's trying to sway this election! I'll give you cookies if you vote for Tony-do you even know the legalities of that, Wade?!"

"Well, unlike you, you mutant Jesus, I couldn't be bothered Googling politics! Politics is for old white men and boring people."

"What do you think we're all going to grow up to be, Wade?" Nathan asked. "Jessica Jones and Jessica Drew are going to be boring old women and the rest of us are going to be boring old men."

"You're a mutant." Wade said. "That makes you a lot less boring than me."

"Is that what this is? You're jealous of my telekinesis?" Nathan asked. "Is that why you're voting for Tony, so he can make you Hall Monitor and you get that little bit of power?"

"Yes!" Wade shouted. "Are you happy now?"

"Free him." Nathan said.

"Are you sure, I mean..." Steve began.

"Yeah. I'm sure." Nathan nodded.

Steve and Sam walked over to Wade's chair and began to untie the duct tape.

"You know you can do so much more on our side." Nathan said, crouching down to Wade's eye level. "Join us, Wade. Trust me."

"Kinda hard to do that when you're sounding suspiciously like Darth Vader." Wade raised an eyebrow.

"Tony's the _real_ Darth Vader." Nathan said.

When Wade was sufficiently freed, he head-butted Nathan in the face-on his already broken nose-sending him staggering backwards.

Nathan brought his hand to his nose. "You little..." He growled as blood seeped through his fingers.

"Nathan, you should go to my mom." Steve frowned.

"Yeah, I'm taking him there now." Scott wrapped his arm around his younger brother. "Come on Nathan."

"No, Scott." Nathan wiggled himself free. "You know what, Sam, Steve-keep him there."

"But I have to pee!" Wade whined as Sam and Steve stopped unwrapping the duct tape.

"Your fault, Wade." Nathan said as he was led out the room by Scott.

Everyone else followed. Steve was the last one out the room so he turned the light out and shut the door after him.

"Nathan, are you okay?" Steve offered Nathan a tissue.

"God, no. He broke my nose. I know it." Nathan took the tissue. "Dick."

"Does this mean...?" Sam began.

"No, I'm still voting for you, Steve." Nathan said.

"I'm sorry that it had to come this far, Nathan. I _will_ be having words with Tony about this." Steve said.

* * *

After lunchtime, everyone gathered back in Mr Selvig's classroom. Steve was the last student to enter and he did so angrily. He stormed over to Tony's desk as Tony was sharing a laugh with Rhodey.

Steve slammed his hands down on Tony's desk, startling him. "I hope you're happy." He snapped.

"Uh... I'm Tony Stark. Of _course_ I'm happy." Tony said.

"I'm glad you're so cavalier about this. Nathan Summers' face was destroyed today, Tony, just because he decided to vote for me." Steve shook his head in disgust. "Is everything a joke to you?"

"Funny things are." Tony replied.

"Well this is no laughing matter."

"Who's laughing?"

"Sort out your voters, Tony." Steve said. "And while we're at it, stop trying to buy votes."

"Whoa, who's buying votes here?" Rhodey asked.

"Your campaign team." Steve replied. "You know, I thought I knew you, Tony. I thought we were close enough to be almost best friends. But it turns out, I don't know you at all."

"I'm not buying votes-"

"You told Wade Wilson he could be hall monitor!" Steve raised his voice. "And now he's gone and hopelessly destroyed Nathan Summers' nose! It's broken beyond recognition, Tony! There was so much blood..." Steve bit his lip.

"Look, I'm sorry, but-"

"Apologize to Nathan Summers!" Steve shouted.

"I thought Wade and Nathan were best friends?" Rhodey asked.

"Exactly, Rhodey-it's like they were conjoined twins! And now they're breaking each others' bones! Tony! Reign in your electorate, that's _all_ I'm asking."

"You know what?" Tony stood up and looked Steve in the eye. "No."

"How dare you-"

"How dare _you_?" Tony asked. "You go around like you're some perfect little patriot, everyone's golden boy, Captain America. Even my own _father_ would rather have _you_ for a son than _me_. Sometimes I just want to punch you in your perfect teeth, you know that? But I don't. Because I restrain myself." He leaned in closer. "But this is me now and I'm saying that I will win the election. That's it, Steve. The gloves are off. This. Is. War."

"I know war better than you do."

"You think you do," Tony raised an eyebrow, "but you're wrong."

"Trust me, I know what I'm talking about." Steve leaned in closer. "And I accept your declaration of war. Bring. It. On."

"Alright everyone, take your seats, Steve, Tony, that means you two as well." Mr Selvig said as he walked into the room. "Because today, we're going to be learning about fractions."

Both Steve and Tont took their seats and began plotting their revenges on each other, how they were going to outdo each other. Because as long as this election was running, it was war.

* * *

**A/N: So it's on now! Civil War! Steve vs Tony! Who will be on who's side? Stay tuned!**

**You can catch Nate Summers and Wade Wilson's versions of events in Civil War Part II, out now in the companion fic, Kid Cable and Kid Deadpool.**


End file.
